


Of Science, Logic, and Bollywood Movies

by maria_j_harper



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Fluff and Smut, Hopeless Idiots, Internalized Homophobia, John Still Has Terrible Taste In Movies, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Orgasm Delay/Denial, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:02:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maria_j_harper/pseuds/maria_j_harper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altern(i)ately titled: In Which Karkat Is In Heat, John Is In Denial, And They Are Both Idiots. Contains Three Sexually Explicit Scenes, Two Of Which Contain Nudity; Six Troll Headcannons, Three Of Which Are Rather Uncommon; Four Authorial Tangents, Chapters Named After Food, And One Character So Frustratingly Deep In Denial You Could Pull Out Your Hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chocolate

4: 30 PM ectoBiologist (EB) began pestering carcinoGeneticist (CG)

 

EB: hey bro, are you still coming to movie night?

CG: I’D LOVE TO. UNFORTUNATELY MY STOMACH CURRENTLY FEELS LIKE A WAR ZONE. ACID AND NOXIOUS GAS MOIL WITHIN ITS WALLS, BROTHER TURNS UPON BROTHER, AND THE PUTREFIED FLESH OF THE DEAD IS LEFT TO ROT IN THE MUD.

CG: I ALREADY THREW UP ONCE. I AM IN NO CONDITION TO BE EXPOSED TO OTHER PEOPLE, MUCH LESS YOUR NAUSEATING MOVIE COLLECTION.

EB: aw man, i’m sorry! being sick sucks.

EB: and dave isn’t coming either!

EB: vriska said she might show up, but if so many people are canceling already maybe i should tell her not to bother.

CG: HEY, DON’T CANCEL MOVIE NIGHT ON MY ACCOUNT. WASN’T ROXY GOING TO COME TOO?

EB: well yeah, but it was supposed to be a way for everyone to hang out! kind of pointless if it’s just me and her.

CG: SOMEHOW I DOUBT SHE WOULD MIND.

EB: hey, what’s wrong anyways? was it something you ate? can i get anything for you?

CG: IT WASN’T SOMETHING I ATE. JUST STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME FOR A FEW DAYS, OKAY?

EB: why? are you really that contagious? look i just wanna help.

CG: I’M NOT CONTAGIOUS, I’M JUST NOT FIT COMPANY FOR ANYBODY AT THE MOMENT. AS ANNOYING AS I FIND YOU EGBERT, I DON’T ACTUALLY WANT TO BITE YOUR HEAD OFF IN A FIT OF RAGE.

EB: *beep* incorrect!

EB: if its just a matter of you being grumpy, i think i can handle it. come on, i wanna do something for my sick friend. do you like tea? i’ll bring you tea. how’s mint? i hear it’s good for stomach stuff.

CG: ...FINE.

CG: BRING ME TEA, AND CHOCOLATE.

EB: chocolate? that might not be such a good idea when you’re sick buddy.

CG: JUST FUCKING DO IT.

 

carcinoGeneticist (CG) has ceased trolling ectoBiologist (EB)

* * *

“Hey. Come on in, I guess.” Karkat says, opening the door. He looks like a mess. His hair is even messier than usual, his eyes are bleary and tired-looking, and his fuzzy crab-themed pajamas rumpled like he’d been wearing them all day. You want to give him a hug.

Instead you come in, handing him a thermos and a bag. “Thanks. Here’s your get-better care package.” You know he has a couch, but you see that he has instead set up a pile of pillows, blankets, and clothing on the floor in front of the TV screen, which is showing the paused image of some pretty Indian-looking girls dancing. “Aw man, you jerk! You skipped out on movie night, only to watch movies without me?”

“Movies of _my_ choosing that don’t suck, and away from intolerable douchehats like you.” He flops down unceremoniously on his pile and wraps one of the fluffier blankets around himself. He unscrews the thermos lid, and takes a small sip. He immediately puts it down on the floor. “Holy mother of god and all of her wacky nephews, why is that so god-damned hot? It’s surprising I still have a tongue!”

You try to stifle the laugh that comes bubbling up your throat, but to no avail. “Oh shut up! You big drama queen! So what are you watching anyways?”

Karkat replies with some title in a language you don’t understand. “It’s a Bollywood movie,” he explains. He unpauses it, and the movie resumes, the girls dancing and singing in some foreign language. The keen detective skills you totally inherited from Jane tell you it’s probably Hindi. Meanwhile Karkat investigated the bag you’d given him. “Egbert, I told you to get me chocolate, not the entire grub fucking Willy Wonka experience.”

“Well I went to Safeway, and I didn’t know what to get you!”

“So your solution was to get me one of everything?”

“No. Just the dark chocolate,” you give him a bit of a sulky pout. You buy him chocolate, and this is the thanks you get?

He takes out a bar and examines it to confirm your claim. “Oh. Well that’s actually not as imbecilic as I expected. By which I mean, ‘wow John this is really thoughtful, thanks!’ No but really, who told you I couldn’t stand milk chocolate?”

“You did. Valentine’s day, remember?” You had given chocolate to all of your friends, even the ones you didn’t know that well, because that was just sort of a thing you did on Valentine’s day! And when Karkat had point-blank refused your gift, declaring that it was bad enough getting obligatory chocolate but that obligatory milk chocolate was enough to make him retch, well, you’d laughed it off of course! Because of course you were used to his ranting by now! It wasn’t like each time he called it obligatory chocolate felt like a kick to the gut! That would be silly!

“Oh yeah. Thanks.” There’s a pause, and you are about to remark that you should probably leave now when he says, “As long as you’re here, wanna watch some Bollywood with me?”

“Yeah! Okay!” You ignore the tight feeling that’s suddenly lodged itself in your throat and come settle down on the edge of the pile. The song has ended, and subtitled dialogue is now taking place between two men. “So what is this movie anyway?”

“It’s Bollywood,” Karkat says again, as though this explains everything. He’s unwrapped the chocolate orange, and consumes a segment in two bites. When you stay silent, he continues. “It’s basically every rom-com ever, but with musical segments involving impressive choreography. It’s a feel-good movie of industrial strength.”

You groan. “You’re lucky you’re sick. Otherwise I would totally make you at least watch something in English.”

“Well thanks John, I appreciate you getting me off so easily thanks to my physical state-" His grey cheeks take a slightly reddish tint as he realizes his mistake. "Fuck! You know what I meant!” 

You chuckle. “Just be happy I’m not Rose. She would totally read way too much into that slip of the tongue there.”

You sit in silence for a moment as you try to follow the dialogue of the movie. You take a different blanket and lay it out over your lap, getting comfortable in your spot. You don’t really notice that your final position, resting your weight on one arm as your legs sprawl in the other direction, has you listing towards Karkat until a fight breaks out on screen and his gasp come from right next to your ear.

You turn to see him in profile, focused intently on the screen, hands clutching his blanket so tightly you’re surprised his claws don’t rip holes in it. His fangs chew at his lower lip and you have this inexplicable urge to lean in just a little bit closer and kiss his temple just before skin turns into wild hair. Not in a romantic way, of course! You couldn’t possibly want to kiss another guy romantically! Just that he looks so sweet and kissable! Bros can show their platonic affection through face kisses, right? Right.

Karkat would totally flip his lid though, so you ignore the impulse. Instead you say, “So wait, what’s going on exactly?”

Karkat’s gaze flicks to you, and he stares at you. Oh, is he mad at you for interrupting? He doesn’t look mad, he just sort of looks at you. His eyes are golden and as you look into them you start to feel very warm. It takes you a minute to realize that he’s spoken. “What?”

“Why are those guys fighting?” you clarify. “And why is that guy flying around breaking windows? That isn’t how flying kicks work, unless you’ve got the Breeze or something.”

“The reasons for their strife are quite numerous, and twice as convoluted. It’s a tale of romance, politics, and betrayal!” Karkar replies dramatically, sounding as though he’s quoting the Netflix movie summary. “As for why he’s flying around breaking windows, it’s the same reason that he’s about to dance around breaking into song.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

He hits you over the head with a small pillow. “It’s Bollywood, just shut up and go with it.”

You laugh. “Okay, okay, I did just come in on the middle of this one, maybe I shouldn’t try too hard to understand.”

So the movie goes on. Karkat finishes his chocolate orange and opens up a bar of chocolate with blueberries in it. He sips at his tea, now that it seems to have cooled down. You find yourself tense, despite your relaxed pose, and you feel hyper aware of everything he does. You try to watch the movie, but any time he moves or reacts to the action on screen you glance at him instinctually. You watch him bite at his claw-like-nails as the final scene comes to a climax, and when the boy gets the girl in the end you realize he’s crying a little.

Awww, that's adorable, but hey, that’s Karkat for you. You want to wipe his tears away with your hand, but he does it first, sniffing.

The movie ends and he doesn’t even ask you before picking out another. You look over at the already half-finished chocolate bar in his hand. “Hey Karkat, have you had anything to eat besides chocolate since you threw up?”

“No.” He’s scowling.

“That can’t be good for you.”

“Shut the fuck up John, you’re not my moirail!” He snarls, but his gaze hasn’t broken from the beginning credits of the movie.

“Alright, I’m going to make you soup.” You get up.

“What part of ‘I threw up’ do you not understand? I don’t want food right now you idiotic giggletwerp!”

“If you can eat chocolate, you can eat some chicken broth. Don’t worry, I’ll handle everything. You just watch your movie.” You walk off to his kitchen, ignoring his last words of grumbling protest.

Ten minutes later, you see that he’s paused the movie for you. “Aw, you didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“I wanted you to start from the beginning so that I might be spared at least a few of your inane questions.” He scowls at you as you approach.

You give him the bowl of broth. “Well since it kept both of us from the movie for so long, at least try eating some of this okay?”

He takes the bowl. “I still don’t want it. Thanks for the effort though I guess.” He unpauses the movie, and you sit down next to him with one leg folded under you and the other stretched out.

“That’s okay Karkat, it’s just what I’d do for any of my friends!” You put an arm of camaraderie around his shoulders. You pretend you don’t feel his shoulders tense at your touch. You know Karkat isn’t really big on physical affection, but sometimes you just can’t resist giving him a hug.

He takes a few spoonfuls of broth up to his mouth. “This actually feels pretty okay. I’m not actually ill you know, I think the nausea is mostly psychosomatic. I do feel like shit though, so… thanks.”

“No problem buddy!” You’re just about to give him his personal space back, when he unexpectedly relaxes against your arm, leaning into you slightly.

“This is nice,” he murmurs. “You’re… pathologically nice. Like seriously, what the fuck man?” His voice has gone from its usual hoarse shout to a sleepy rumble that reverberates in your chest.

As the movie goes on, he shifts a little closer, so that his weight is resting more on the left side of your chest than your arm and shoulder. You don’t know what’s made him so cuddly, but you’re not really complaining. Cuddle bros are the best! On the golden ship, there used to be big cuddle puddles where everyone would just get together and snuggle. Karkat probably would have called it a revolting orgy of pale affection, or something silly like that, but then again, here he is cuddling so you could be wrong about that.

You rest your chin on the top of his head between his horns casually, because it’s right there to rest on. He makes a slight hmph, but doesn’t actually pull away or say anything, so you figure he can’t mind too much. His hair smells nice, musty and warm. “Man, Karkat snuggles are kind of the best.” Whoops, did you just say that out loud?

He shifts slightly, and you’re sure you’ve offended him or something, but instead of throwing insults at you and retreating to the far side of the pile he just moves out from under your chin so he can lift his head up and look at you. “John, whatever you think this means, don’t. Don't even think, because this means absolutely nothing.” His voice is low an breathy, and then he’s pushing himself up so that his face fills your vision. His eyes flutter closed, just before his lips press up against yours.

Karkat is kissing you.

Holy shit, Karkat is kissing you!

What do you do? Do you kiss back? You can’t think. His lips are soft and he’s letting out this long sigh of a breath, like he’s been holding it, like he’s been waiting for this and oh, you could just melt into him for that! You press back against his lips experimentally, and his hand clasps itself on your shoulder with an iron grip like he never plans to let you go. You feel his tongue, soft and wet, dart out to moisten your lips, just as the rest of him suddenly pulls away.

He pulls away and retreats to the other side of the pile, until no part of you is touching any part of him, and you want to pull a blanket over yourself the way he has because where he was leaning on you is now cold and aching with absence. He glares at the movie screen, like it’s Bollywood’s fault for his lapse in judgment.

“Karkat?” You hate how uncertain your voice is. You sound… vulnerable. “What was that?” He pretends not to hear you, so you keep pressing him. “I mean, um, that didn’t really feel like a hate kiss? Are you...? What…? Sorry, I’m just really confused here. What do you-”

He stands up, and when he looks at you his eyes are so furious that they look more orange than gold. “Get out,” he demands, voice ragged. You boggle at him vacantly. “Get out John, get the fuck out of my house! Do what I told you to from the beginning and just leave me the fuck alone!” Um, wow, he’s being… actually pretty intimidating. You’re a little bit scared, and oh gosh, is he crying again? "You utter assbrain, why did you come here? You're just making everything worse!"

Ouch.

You leave.


	2. Baklava

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, there is a thin line between the homoerotic subtext of brotherly love and actually being gay for your friend. You crossed it about ten miles back.

12:03 AM carcinoGeneticist (CG) has begun trolling ectoBiologist (EB)

 

CG: HEY NOOKSTAIN.

CG: I GUESS I DO OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION FOR ALL THAT SHIT.

CG: ALL THE CHOCOLATE MADE ME FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT AT LEAST TELLING YOU WHY I ACTED MORE LIKE A BRAINLESS FUCKWIT THAN USUAL.

CG: IT’S A MATTER OF SCIENCE AND LOGIC REALLY, ONE THAT EVEN A PINHEAD LIKE YOU COULD LIKELY WORK OUT GIVEN SUFFICIENT TIME AND HELPFUL HINTS.

CG: JUST THINK OF IT THIS WAY: TROLLS EVOLVED IN A WORLD WHERE THEY LITERALLY HAD TO MATE OR DIE, TO THE POINT WHERE THE CONDESCENSION DISPATCHED IMPERIAL DRONES TO MAKE SURE IT HAPPENED.

CG: SO IT WOULD MAKE LOGICAL SENSE FOR THOSE WITH HIGHER LIBEDOS, SPECIFICALLY THOSE WHOSE LIBEDOS WENT UP BEFORE THE DRONES ARRIVED TO LAST LONGER.

CG: TO THE POINT WHERE WE EVOLVED TO GO INTO A BIANNUAL PHASE NOT UNLIKE THOSE OF YOUR EARTH MAMMALS’ HEAT.

CG: IT’S REALLY FUCKING UNPLEASANT.

EB: huh.

CG: SO WHAT I’M SAYING BASICALLY IS THAT I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID IT MEANT NOTHING. I WOULD HAVE KISSED A FUCKING ROCK AT THAT POINT.

EB: oh.

CG: NOW THAT YOU KNOW THIS, I’M SURE YOU WILL AGREE THAT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME UNTIL THIS STUPID THING GOES AWAY.

CG: IT WILL PREVENT A GREAT DEAL OF DISCOMFORT FOR ALL PARTIES INVOLVED.

EB: nope!

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN “NOPE?” JOHN, DO YOU NOT REALIZE THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A MATTER TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY? BECAUSE I CAN TELL RIGHT NOW THAT IT’S NOT! I AM BEING COMPLETELY SERIOUS HERE, EGBERT!

EB: i mean nope.

EB: the girls always take care of each other when they’re on their periods or whatever, and i don’t see why this should be any different.

EB: there has to be some kind of solidarity among bros, bro, and i am not letting you go through something so uncomfortable alone.

CG: YOU BROUGHT ME CHOCOLATE, YOU’VE HELPED ENOUGH.

EB: nope.

EB: i need to sleep right now, but i’m coming over tomorrow, and that is my final word on the matter!

EB: is there anything you need?

CG: NO. SERIOUSLY, LEAVE ME ALONE.

* * *

“God damn it Egbert, you numbskull, I told you to leave me alone.”

“I brought baklava.”

He lets you in and you set your box of sweets on the dining room table. He goes into the kitchen. “I made fish, you want some?”

“Sure!” So you sit down on the pile of blankets, which doesn't seem to have changed at all since you left, save for several discarded chocolate wrappers laying around. Compared to Karkat’s normal tidiness it seems weird. You clean them up, put them in the now empty chocolate bag to be thrown in the trash later.

Karkat comes in with two plates of rice, asparagus, and little fried fish. He hands you one of them. “School fish are kind of a nostalgic comfort food,” he explains. “Who knows, you might actually learn something.”

You aren’t sure what exactly he means by that, but you take the plate. The asparagus are fried so that the tips are crispy and the stalks are sweet, just the way you like them. You gobble them up immediately. You notice that he’s queued up another Bollywood movie, and you see on the time bar that it’s three hours long. “Jesus, that’s a long-ass movie!” you can’t resist saying.

“Most Bollywood films are obscenely long,” Karkat agrees. “Try the fish.”

You obediently scoop up a forkful of fish. Now that you get a closer look at them, you see that they actually come in a variety of colors. You put them in your mouth. Hm, not bad. Suddenly there’s a shooting pain in our head. “Ow! Fuck, ow!”

Karkat looks at you and winces. “Oh, I guess I should have seen that coming, sorry. I guess it doesn’t work on humans.”

You suddenly understand jack shit. “What?”

“School feeding,” he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh. Ooooh. Haha, school feeding. It’s a play on words, that’s actually pretty funny.”

“Yeah, yeah, we all had a big laugh when we found out. We then proceeded to mock your obviously inferior system of education.” He munches on a blue fish, and a look of contentment crosses his face. “Mmm, science.”

“Wait, so you learn stuff… by eating fish?”

Karkat shrugs. “You learn stuff by reading it from processed tree carcasses, how is that any more weird?”

“But… Terezi has law books! I saw them when I rescued her green stuffed dragon thing!”

“Well duh, the legislacerators couldn’t let just anyone know about law! The law schools were all hunted to extinction sweeps ago!”

You laugh, headache mostly gone now. “Trolls are weird.”

“Humans are weirder.”

“Weirdo.”

“Idiot.”

“You want my fish?" The painful side effects didn't last long, but you have no desire to repeat the experience.

He offers his plate and you scrape the fish off onto it. You think you catch just the hint of something like amusement on his face. “Weirdo.”

“Weirder-o.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Shut up, it’s totally a word. You just don’t appreciate linguistics the way I do.”

“Ha! That’s rich!” He elbows you in the ribs and you laugh.

You lapse into a companionable silence as you try to follow the movie while also eating your rice. Once you’ve put your plate down some distance from the pile and Karkat’s stacked his plate on top of it, you notice him becoming increasingly fidgety and tense. He shifts the position of his legs several times, not seeming to be able to get comfortable.

“How’re you feeling?”

He just grunts in response.

“You need to relax man. Okay, come here.”

He gives you a curious look as you scoot so that you’re sitting behind him. You put your hands on his shoulders and press your thumbs into his back. “Shoulder rubs always help me relax,” you explain.

He continues looking at you for a moment, and you’re sure he’s going to tell you to get your “grubby alien frond nubs” off of him, but instead he turns back to watch the movie, which is as close to acceptance of the gesture as you’re going to get.

You knead his shoulders and draw circles with your thumbs. The muscles aren’t quite where they would be on a human, their shape and feel just slightly alien to the touch. You worry that rubbing his shoulders the same way you would for one of your friends might not feel as good because of this, but then he starts… purring.

It’s soft at first, you almost wouldn’t notice it, but as your thumbs trace his spine from mid-shoulder all the way up to his neck, he makes a rumble that reverberates through your whole body. Karkat is purring like a great big cat. Smiling, you keep kneading and pressing, tracing the bone structure of his shoulders, and then his neck, working the knots of tension out of his muscles.

His purring just keeps going, getting a bit louder like now that he knows you’ve heard it he’s not bothering to keep it quiet, and your whole body feels really happy and warm. After the tension in his shoulders is released, you keep rubbing them over with a gentle touch. You don’t want to overwork them, but you also don’t want to stop. Slowly, you move your hands down his sides so you can massage him a bit lower on his back. You follow his spine with your thumbs, pressing and rubbing little circles. You follow his ribs with gentle pressure, press up firmly along his lower back.

He groans and leans back, and you smile to yourself, chest giving a little squeeze. And then he shifts his weight, slides closer to you, and grinds himself back against your lap.

And then you pop a boner.

“Um.” Blushing furiously, you retreat to your side of the pile. He looks at you, nocturnal pupils large and round.

He folds his legs tightly, stiffening his posture, and glares intently at the movie. Right. He was um, really horny. You’d forgotten. Touching him had probably been a bad idea, as far as being a good friend was concerned. He would probably much rather be alone, so that at least then he could touch himself. Oh. That was um... a thought that was happening now. Karkat touching himself, his face flushed, brow pinched in concentration, mouth panting open with pleasure… yeah, wow. Having a boner sure did weird things to your brain, ha ha ha!

He turns his glare on you. “What are you looking at?”

“Um, you…”

“I told you Egbert, nothing. You may as well be a fucking rock, only softer and a bit more stupid. Your own fucking fault for fucking touching me like that, I mean fuck!”

“Right. Sorry.”

He sighs. “Don’t apologize, you sniveling piece of lusus offal, I’m the one who keeps fucking molesting you just because I can’t keep a fucking hold of myself.”

“Jeez Karkat, is it my fault or isn’t it? Make up your mind already!”

He snorts. “It is your fault, but only in the sense that everything is inherently your fault, because I said so.”

You bust out laughing. “I see.” Your laughter seems to convince your dick that you were just kidding, and your erection begins to deflate, thank god!

“Shut up and watch the movie, dumbass.”

You shut up and watch the movie. As it’s the first Bollywood movie you get to watch all the way through, you follow the plot fairly well. Karkat is right, it’s like pretty much every rom-com ever, but you can sort of see the appeal you guess? There’s just not nearly enough action or explosions for your taste. The dance scenes are pretty impressive though. Every now and then Karkat will editorialize on who the girl should end up with and why, or on the various Hindi words for love, or whatever else comes to his mind.

It almost feels like a normal movie night, except that you’re alone with Karkat, and you could totally kiss his temple if you wanted to. Only if you did, that would mean he might kiss you back on the mouth. He might curse you, but then he’d ask you to kiss him again, and- why was this a bad plan again?

Because you… you’re not attracted to other guys, you’re not! But Karkat’s so… Karkat, and you could help him, make him feel better. Yes that, that would be nice. No big deal, just a nice guy helping his bro out. You look at him and take a deep breath. “Hey Karkat?”

“What?” As soon as he turns his sullen glare on you, you feel your nerves falter.

“Um, you want some popcorn?” You ask lamely.

He shrugs. “I’m not pausing the movie.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just go during the next music number.” You smile and nudge him with your elbow. He lets out a huff that could almost sound like a laugh.

“It’s almost over anyways, just wait.”

So you wait, all the while trying to psyche yourself up. What if he kicks you out again? What if he doesn’t want your help? You know he doesn’t really mean all of the names he calls you, but he still might prefer his own hand to yours. That would kinda be a big blow to your ego, if you’re being totally honest.

On the other hand, what if he takes it too far? He sort of had a black crush on you three years ago you think, and sure that was a while ago but what if he tries to turn this into that? You don’t think you’re ready for hate sex, and you wouldn’t want it anyways. Not with him especially, you can’t stand the thought of Karkat actually despising you. Also the idea of him using his fangs on you is kind of scary.

Eventually the end credits roll, and you realize you have absolutely no idea what happened at the end. You reassure yourself that since it is a rom-com, the ending was predictable and happy.

“Well? Weren’t you going to make popcorn?”

“Right!” You jump up to your feet and hurry off to the kitchen. Three or so minutes later, you return with a bowl full of popcorn and a plate full of various things to add to it. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I brought everything.” You hand him the bowl and set down the plate so you can sit.

“Huh? You mean you didn’t just do butter and salt? What else even is there?”

You give him a wounded look. “Man your planet really was terrible, wasn’t it?” He rolls his eyes. You take the bowl. “I didn’t do salt because I thought you might like soy sauce.”

“Soy sauce?”

“Yes. It’s salty, so it’s a good substitute. We’ve also got pepper, oregano from your spice rack, and brewer’s yeast!”

“Brewer’s yeast?”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it! It’s good!”

The look he gives you is so skeptical it's comedic. You blot the soy sauce over the bowl, and then sprinkle it over with yeast. “Here, try. If you don’t like it then more for me, I’ll make you a different bowl.”

“John, you’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“Being way too god damn nice for your own good.”

“Shut up, I’ll be as nice as I wanna be! You’re not my moy-rail... thingy,” you mock, rolling your eyes in your best impression of him.

He snorts. He tries the popcorn and starts the movie he’s queued up, presumably indicating that the snack is at least tolerable. The banter relaxed him, but it doesn’t take long for him to tense up again.

“How are you feeling?” you ask softly.

“Well I’m uncomfortably horny... and now I’m embarrassed by that TMI bomb I just dropped on you, but other than that, fine,” he growls.

You can feel your face reddening, as heat blooms over your cheeks. “Oh. If you’d like I could um…” you should probably just offer to leave, to let him take care of himself, so to speak. “I could help. If you like.”

He looks at you, and his eyes draw yours as inexorably as magnets. He squints at you as though you must have gone crazy. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah! I could help you with um, your problem. I mean, its better than letting you go around kissing rocks, right?”

There’s a pause as he continues to squint at you like you’re some mystery of the universe. “Why are you offering to do _that_?"

“Because we’re bros! We help each other out! ...You don’t have to say yes. I just thought…” What did you think? Now, with his eyes gazing into yours, you can’t really remember what you’d planned to say. Suddenly uncomfortable you blurt, “No homo though.”

Karkat balks. “How the ever piss loving fuck is offering to get me off ‘no homo?’ Explain to me, John, how the proposition you are making could ever be constituted as anything but a homosexual advance! Please, I need to know, for science, why we have not been suddenly transported to the capital city of homosexuality, Gaysville! ...Whatever the hell that even means.”

“Um… because I’d be doing it as a favor? I mean it’s not like I want to. I mean I do want to! But not because I suddenly have this craving for alien dick, more because I like you and I want to make you feel good? Does that make sense?”

“No.” He crosses his arms and turns away, and you do your best to not feel... disappointed? No, it must just be your ego hurting. Then he flops back on the pile to glare at the ceiling. “Fuck it, I can’t think like this. I don’t even care what your motivations are anymore, just… fine. Go wash your hands first though, you fuckwit, gog knows where they’ve been.”

So you go to the kitchen and scrub your hands. Your dick is half hard again, and you do your best to ignore its interest in what you’re planning to do to Karkat. _Not to, with._ You remind yourself. _I might have suggested it, but he agreed. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t at least a little into it. ...Except that he also wouldn’t have agreed if he wasn’t in the throes of his weird alien heat thing. Bluh, now I’m just thinking myself into knots. Stupid brain._

You dry your hands on a towel and rejoin Karkat in the living room. You sit, movie slipping into background noise as you focus only on him.

Okay, you can do this. You said you would do this. 

Um. 

Where do you start? Do you just slip your hand into his pants? No, that’s not right. You can’t just… it would feel too cheap that way, icky. You turn your whole body towards him, although he’s still facing the screen. You place your palm gently on his cheek.

He turns to glare at you a little. “What the fuck are you doing Egbert?”

You pull your hand back hesitantly. “Um, I don’t know, what do you want me to do?”

He gives you something between a huff and a chuckle. “Whatever.”

You reach your hand out slowly to place it softly back over his cheek. “So this is okay then?”

“Yeah.” His normally loud voice comes out as a whisper. His eyes, golden and luminous, search your face with something akin to fear. You trace your hand up, rub at his temple and thread your fingers through his hair. You’re surprised at how soft it is, wild mess that it usually looks like.

“What about this? Is this okay?” You run your hand through his a couple of times.

His eyes close and he leans into your touch until the both of you move together and he’s leaning his back against your chest, sitting so close next to you he’s practically in your lap. “Yes, John, just touch me. It doesn’t even matter where, just touch me.”

Ohhhh-kay, that comment went straight to your dick. Forget half mast, you are now fully hoisted and ready to sail. ...And you should probably leave the convoluted analogies to Karkat in the future. You reach for the remote, and when he doesn’t stop you, you turn off the movie. You're sitting more or less behind him now. You take his shoulder with your left hand and just hold him, while with your right you run your fingers through his hair again, brush your fingertips experimentally up along the side of one horn. You rub his horn again, just to gauge his reaction. He sort of shivers. Hm, you might have to ask him about that some time. Now though you trace a circle around his shoulder, dip down to explore his chest.

The fabric of his pajamas is as soft as it looks, and beneath it his chest swells and sinks in long controlled breaths, each release of breath like a sigh that pulls almost painfully at something in your stomach. Even though he’s pretty similar to you anatomically, you can feel where the muscles connect or move differently. You feel the strange lack of nipples on his pectorals, the odd un-dimpled smoothness of his soft belly. You wrap your arm around, over his shoulder, tracing his left side. You find a horizontal ridge there, about three inches wide tapering on either end, maybe six inches from front to back. You’re surprised you didn’t notice it when you were rubbing his back earlier.

You’re also surprised when you feel Karkat’s breath catch as you run your fingers over it and he presses his back up against your chest. He starts to purr again, and you can feel his rumbling against your chest.

You switch to his right side so you’re not constricting him with your arm, and sure enough there’s a ridge symmetrical to the other. You wonder what they are, but you forget to ask as Karkat lets out a sweet little gasp. You lower your head down so that it’s next to his, not quite daring to rest your chin on his shoulder, and you let your left hand wander until it drapes across his chest, embracing him lightly. Your right hand slips up under his shirt, more curious than anything, discovering that the ridge is made of slightly softer flesh than the rest of his skin. You smile at the silky texture as you run your fingers from one end to the other.

Karkat arches his head back, and you see he’s biting his lip with his fangs, so hard you’re a little worried he might draw blood. You nuzzle his ear briefly with your nose, and the open-mouthed look he gives you when you pull away is pure lust. He kisses you, and you couldn’t fight against the passion with which his lips meld against yours if you wanted to. You kiss him back, and everything else just seems to slip away. You run your palm across the ridge on his side, and he breaks the kiss moaning. “Shit John,” he mutters, “Who the fuck taught you this?”

You chuckle and nuzzle his cheek. “You did, just now. Now that I’ve figured out how to pay attention, you’re not too difficult to learn from.” Feeling bold, you attempt a Pants-Explore X Face-Kiss combo, lips brushing against his temple lightly as your hand travels downward, letting his shirt fall back down so you can cup his crotch through fuzzy cloth.

His hips jerk upward, pressing into your touch desperately. Pressed so tight against him, you feel something in his pants move. Um. Suddenly, you are a lot more hesitant to stick your hand down there. Maybe you can just… get him off like this? Yeah…

So how exactly are you supposed to do this? You try an experimental little squeeze, and Karkat lets out an almost painful groan. Okay, you’ll take that as a good sign. Your own erection is getting kind of painful as well, but you ignore it. Karkat’s case of blue balls is probably much worse than yours, and you would feel weird touching yourself while also touching him, kind of skeevy. You weren’t the one who was supposed to be getting off on this, after all.

You rub your hand up and down over the bulge in his crotch, and he fucking whimpers, Christ, how the fuck is that allowed? Trolls, especially the ones named Karkat, should not be allowed to make noises like that. You huff out a breath and do your best to swallow your arousal. His- he calls it a bulge, right? His bulge moves against your hand, licking at it the way a tongue might.

You pull your hand away skittishly, and Karkat’s hips slump back to the ground. He gives you a dazed, questioning look with a growing undertone of annoyance. _Oh, hi Karkat. You look pretty today- I mean-_ Your thoughts are an incoherent jumble. Maybe skin on skin would be easier, you muse. At least then you might have a better idea of what you’re dealing with. You may as well try.

You grin at Karkat and press your lips into the nape of his neck. Slowly, you slip your hand under the elastic band of his pajama pants. His bulge licks upwards eagerly to greet you, tangles in your fingers.

Uh. Okay. That is _weird._ You were pretty much expecting some level of weirdness, but as much as Dave had joked about what trolls’ bulges might be like, you hadn’t been ready to handle one; not in the figurative sense, and much less in the far more literal sense you now find yourself, um, grappling with.

It’s slick with some kind of pre-cum slime, prehensile and tapering. Its tip nudges curiously around your fingers in a way that reminds you of when you were a kid gardening with your dad and he let you hold an earthworm in your hand.

Okay, well maybe it’s not that gross. You needed a minute to get used to it, but, hey, you think you’re okay now. You disentangle your fingers so you can reach down to the base, and quickly realize that doing so in your current position would be pretty uncomfortable for both parties. You scootch yourself to the right so that you’re in position to reach around Karkat’s side, instead of over the top of his shoulder the way you had been. Your fingers slide easily down the length of him, and accidentally slip down further to find that in the place where on a human you would find balls, he has the beginnings of a slit.

Holy shit, trolls have both. You always kind of thought that when Karkat said something about his nook he was being figurative, the way some girls said “suck my balls.” 

Welp, looks like you lost that bet. You owe Dave ten bucks.

You cautiously explore the edges of Karkat’s nook with your fingers. Okay, it’s not that different from a human’s equipment, you think, based on what you can feel as compared to what you saw during middle school Sex Ed. Yeah, okay, you can work with this! Actually you might kind of have to work with it? Karkat’s bulge has just wrapped itself firmly around your wrist, and doesn’t feel like it has any plans of letting go. It pulses, pulling your hand in closer, which you take as your cue to feel over his nook some more.

You run your fingers up one side of his nook and then up the other. You focus on one side, exploring the folds of skin that protect his opening. He sighs breathily and arches his back, pressing himself closer into you. You feel a little bit dizzy. He’s so responsive, it’s amazing. You try doing the same thing on the other side, and his whole body pulses, pushing himself up into your touch as he moans again and in that moment he’s gorgeous, and it’s breathtaking, and you’re doing this to him, for him. You, you’re the one making him moan and gasp like he can hardly breathe. You feel almost drunk on this, on sex and pride and Karkat. Karkat, Karkat, Karkat, if you could always do this with him, you would touch him forever.

You slide your hand up to grip the base of his bulge, because it really doesn’t seem all that scary or weird anymore, it’s just a part of Karkat after all. It releases your wrist as you move your hand upwards, stroking it purposefully. He makes a strained sound. “Fuck,” he pants.

You let go so you can reach back down so you can gasp at the base of him and give him another long stroke. He gives something like a contented sigh, but with a little more force behind it. Though wet, the skin of his nook and bulge are as soft as that of those ridges, and really nice and warm besides. His bulge still moves amorously against your hand, but it’s become less active now, stiffer, and you play with the tip a little, rubbing it up and down with just the ends of your fingers.

Karkat jerks. “Fuck J-John, I can’t- nnh!”

The sound of your name pulls you out of your hypnotic endorphin stupor enough to tell your brain to start thinking in words again. “Hmm? Wassat?” No one said anything about intelligent words.

“John you grundlefuck, just- ahhh.” You honestly can’t tell if his cry is of pleasure or of frustration- perhaps a mix of both? Either way, you quit teasing him and take his bulge full in hand.

“Yeah, okay Karkat, you just tell me what you need. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it, just say the word.” Your voice is lower, huskier than usual, with this kind of tender whispery quality to it that you scarcely recognize. Apparently you said something right, because he melts against you, plants a sloppy kiss on your cheek, only to arch again as you stroke his bulge a bit faster, setting a rhythm to your pulls. He gives this two part cry, hips pulsing up and down in a little spasm of pleasure.

He starts panting in time with your pulls as you rub him up and down his tapered length. You take a slightly firmer grasp, move your hand just a little bit faster. He gasps breathlessly. “AH, ah, John, my nook. I really need something inside my nook.”

You don’t even let yourself think or hesitate, you let go of his bulge and rub your fingers down to his nook. Your first and middle finger slide over his entrance just once, and then push up into him. You quickly realize that this is not a good angle for depth, but Karkat gasps gratifyingly anyways.

You hook your fingers slightly, curving them upwards to try to find a good angle that you can make work. You continue to explore for a while, and find Karkat’s g-spot purely by accident when you hit one part of his walls with the tips of your fingers and he slurs an incoherent swear word as his hips thrust upwards. You angle for that spot again, and it only takes a couple minutes of rapid thrusts with you fingers before a loud cry tears itself from Karkat’s throat, his back arches so hard that he almost throws the both of you sprawling backwards, his nook squeezes down on your fingers tight, and then suddenly he’s like jelly in your arms. His nook gives a few echoing spasms, and then releases you.

He sighs contentedly, and you extract your hand from his pants to rest on his belly. You hold him like that for a while, letting him recover. You stay silently there for a long time, half from fear that if you spoke he might regret this, panic, recoil away from you again; half because what would you even say?

Okay, you could really use a cold shower right now. “Hey Karkat, mind if I use your bathroom?”

“Sure.”

You tuck your still slick right hand behind your back so you don’t accidentally touch anything with it, and ruffle his hair with the other as you shift to a standing position.

* * *

After you’ve showered and successfully killed your stupid totally not gay boner, you walk back out with a cheerful little bounce to your step. You find Karkat the same way he’d been the night before, wrapped snugly in a fuzzy blanket, watching his Bollywood movie. It’s as if what you’d done fifteen minutes ago was just a dream. A really weird, sexy dream that made your head spin worse than Roxy’s lemonade, but a dream.

Yeah, okay, fair enough. You guess you can’t really blame him for wanting to pretend it hadn’t happened. You sit down on the pile, and Karkat turns to look at you, surprise turning into his trademark scowl. “I figured you’d want to be heading home now. It’s late.”

Your brow knits together as something sour and sharp takes hold in the center of your chest. “Oh. Um, well I was hoping I could hang out a little more, but I can go if you want me to.”

He turns back to the screen with a little grunt of annoyance. “Suit yourself.”

After a couple of minutes he stops keeping such a tight hold of the blanket and it drapes relaxed across his shoulders like a shawl. On screen, the boy and the girl sing a song together about love eternal, and with the music playing you almost miss Karkat’s wistful little sigh.

A little bit later he jumps up and pauses the movie. “Bucket,” he explains before disappearing in the direction of his bedroom.

You wait in boredom for him to return for what feels like an eternity, even though it was probably really only five minutes. He looks drowsy when he returns, happy too. You think about teasing him about how he’s got the “just got laid” glow about him, but bite your tongue because you know that’s a sure way to wipe that faint trace of a smile off his face.

Then he throws a book at you. You flinch, throwing your arms up in front of your face just in time to catch it. “Hey! What was that for?”

“I figured that since getting up close and personal with one, you’d probably have some really fucking invasive questions about the troll anatomy. Gog knows I’m not answering your awkward as shit inquiries, so you get to lug around that book until you understand marginally more than jack shit.”

“Oh. Thanks Karkat! You’re right, reading an academic book, while boring, is probably better than having to ask a heck ton of embarrassing awkward personal questions.”

“Thank me later,” he answers wryly. You lapse into silence, and on the screen the movie plays. The next musical number has started, reflecting the main characters’ parents more jaded view on love when he speaks up again. “Hey, didn’t you say something about baklava at some point?”

“Oh yeah, I kind of forgot it in the dining room. Thanks for reminding me!”

You go get a couple of plates for your dessert. You come back unable to get the smile off your face. You give Karkat his, and then he’s smiling too. Wow, you don’t think you’ve seen a smile this genuine on him, ever. You would remember a smile that heartbreakingly adorable.

“This is everything beautiful in the world,” he murmurs sincerely, holding his plate like some precious treasure.

You giggle and give him a fork, since sticky finger food and fluffy blanket piles are just a recipe for disaster. You watch the way he savors each bite with a fond smile. Your chest gives a warm squeeze of affection. You bite the inside of your lip to resist the temptation to say something teasingly sappy about how no, _he’s_ everything beautiful in the world. He might take it the wrong way- it’s not like you could actually be in love with him or anything.

You eat your dessert and try to follow the movie, but about halfway through you start drowsing off, the few scenes you catch are so out of context you may as well not have the subtitles at all. Eventually you just pass out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where we start to get into the headcannons. There's actually one more than I listed in the original summery, whoops. Some will be explained a little more in chapter three when John reads Karkat's book, but I just wanted to site the horn headcannon I'm using to the great Asuka Kureru (Askerian), author of such works as Battlefield Terra, and Midnight on Demon Patrol. If you haven't read their stuff, my god, what are you doing here? Go! Read! Then weep in anguish with me while we wait for another chapter.  
> The whole school feeding idea was... I dunno, does it work? I like the banter they have around the idea, so I decided to leave it in, despite feeling a little self indulgent for including such a weird personal headcannon.  
> If you have questions about any of the headcannons I use, feel free to ask. You're not bothering me, I promise.


	3. Omeletes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last night almost could have been a dream. Today is reality.  
> Welcome to the morning after.

You wake up bleary-eyed in a dark room that you don’t recognize at first. You stay lying down until you remember your bearings. You think you vaguely remember Karkat kicking you and telling you to go home, but you’d just mumbled incoherently and snuggled deeper into his blanket pile. Apparently after that, he’d just given up and let you stay. Unfortunately, a blanket pile is not a bed and looking at the clock on the wall you see that it’s just past four in the morning.

You have no idea what Karkat’s sleep schedule is like, but you’re gonna take a guess and assume he’s going to be asleep for a while. You guess you should probably go home. But then again, it’s dark and creepy out there and you’re not sure the bus even runs at this hour.

Instead, you turn the volume way down low and watch one of those kids movies with the talking golden retrievers. The series, in your opinion is pure cinematic genius! Karkat still swears by the first one, ranting that “these endless ‘sequels’ don’t even have anything to do with the original movie or message, why do they keep happening? Air Bud deserves better than this!” 

When the movie ends, his recommendation queue is completely jacked up with the other movies in the franchise. Whoops. Karkat won’t be happy with you. You’ll have to do something to make it up to him.

Breakfast it is!

You raid his fridge for whatever you can scrounge up. You spend a while preparing and cooking a pair of omelets for the two of you. It’s around six thirty when you put lids over the food so it stays warm and go to see if he’s awake yet. You knock softly on his bedroom door, not wanting to wake him up if he’s still asleep. “Hey Karkat? Are you awake? I made omelets.”

There’s no reply, so you decide to go flip through that book he threw at you. After quizzically pondering the anatomical sketches for a while and googling the word “vestigial” (as in “vestigial grub legs”), you start to feel like you’re back in Sex Ed. Textbooks sure do have a way of making sexy stuff look weird. The grossly abstract diagrams just don’t mesh with your memory of that moment with him.

That’s not to say that that hadn’t been its own brand of surreal. Haha, was that really a thing that happened? Did you really do that with him? You can scarcely say the words “hand job,” that you were giving one not too long ago- to Karkat no less! …It feels like some kind of bizarre dream or something.

You flip to the section about horns to distract yourself, honestly feeling more uncomfortable about the whole thing than before. Huh. Apparently they’re sensory apparatus, like ears? Only they sense vibrations, like echolocation or something. Man, no wonder Terezi finds her way so easily without her eyes. Hm… so if touching horns mutes their ability to sense stuff… oh. Huh. If you think of it that way, you guess touching a troll’s horns is like putting someone in a blindfold- not always sexual, but when it is, it’s kind of kinky.

Your entire face feels like it’s on fire as you shut the book closed with a snap. “Karkat, your phys-ed book is traumatizing me!” You whine.

There’s a snort behind you, and you whirl around to see Karkat on his way to the kitchen smirking at you.

“Whoa, when did you get there? Since when are you a stealth master?”

“John, my hidden talents are numerous, and you can be certain that they are all so much better than any of yours.”

“Are you sure? Tell that to the breakfast I’m going to go reheat for us.” You grin up at him puckishly.

He sniffs. “I suppose bringing me food is one of your more admirable abilities. Unfortunately for you, I could easily replace you with an order-out menu from Pizza Hut.”

You pick yourself up and head to the kitchen. “Leaving me for someone else already? Nooo, Karkat! How could you betray our relationship this way?”

He snorts. “Eh, you know I’ll come back to you eventually. I can’t argue with the Pizza Hut menu about which one of us has the worst taste in movies after all. The menu would doubtlessly have better taste than you of course, but the bickering is half the fun.”

You laugh and start microwaving one of the omelets. “But will I take you back after your painful betrayal? Leaving me for that cheap print-out hussie! I may not have much Karkat, but I have my pride!” You’re not sure what you’re quoting, a rom-com or a reality show, but you do know that you’re only barely keeping yourself from cracking the hell up.

You keep bantering while you wait on the microwave to ding. When it does, you hand Karkat the plate and send him off to the dining room with the simple instruction, “Here, it’s an om-nom-nomelet. Go eat.”

He glares at you for your terribly silly pun, but takes the om-nom-nomlet.

You join him three minutes later with your own hot plate full of delicious nutritiousness. You dig in happily, but Karkat finishes before you. You catch him glancing between his hands clasped on the table and your shoulder, as though he’s uncertain of whether to pester you or not. That’s kind of out of character for him, you wonder what’s up.

He gets up wordlessly and takes his plate to the sink. You eat away at your food, but you’re starting to think your eyes were too big for your stomach. There’s still quite a bit left, but you’re feeling pretty full.

Suddenly there’s a grey-skinned hand on your fork, taking it and putting it on your plate, and then Karkat is pushing your chair backward so he can straddle your legs and sit on your lap. “Um. Karkat?”

He’s only slightly shorter than you, so his eyes are pretty much level with yours as they gaze at you almost balefully. “Does your offer for help still stand?”

“Yeah! Of course! Um, I didn’t realize you were still in heat, how long does that usually last anyways?”

“The average is four to five days- something you _could_ have learned from the book,” he snarls, and gosh you never expected to be this fucking close to those sharp-looking fangs! He snatches for your hand, and your first instinct is to pull away, your predator alarm jangling through your body. _Pull it together Egbert, you kissed that mouth full of danger just yesterday and you were fine!_ You let him take your hand, and he guides it beneath his pants.

 _Wow, that’s unusually straightforward for-_ Your ability to think short-circuits as he uses his hand to rub yours up against his nook. His bulge isn’t out yet, so your hand moves easily and unobstructed. Yeah, who knew troll dicks were retractable? If not for that book you would have been so confused right now. Of course, you’re still pretty confused, just for different reasons. “Um, Karkat, maybe we shouldn’t.”

He hisses at you, and you instinctually pull your hand out of his pants and draw it close to your body defensively. “Why not?” He demands. “You had no problems with it yesterday!”

“I just, um, I don’t know! We should have maybe thought it through a little more?”

He fixes you with a glare that could melt glass, and his voice does this scary calm thing that throws a sharp contrast to his usual shouting. “Listen Egbert, normally I would agree with you, but normally we would never have gotten into this situation in a hundred million sweeps, and yet here we are. I am irritable, I am sensitive to fucking everything, and my nook aches like a broken fucking bloodpusher so you can either help me, or you can go home and fuck yourself.”

You frown and put your hand on his shoulder. “Hey, calm down. Whether or not we repeat last night, I’m sure as hell not doing it while you’re like this. You need to relax a little, okay?” He inclines his head, but seems as tense and angry as he was before. He was like this yesterday too, at first, what did you do to calm him down? You slide your hand from his shoulder up along his neck to bury your fingers in his hair. It’s still that unexpectedly soft texture, and you grip it lightly while you run your thumb up and down over his temple.

With your other hand you reach down to cup his crotch, rub your palm over the crevasse of his nook through the cloth with a slow stroke, hoping to relieve some of that sexually frustrated tension. At first his body only seems to tense up more, but after another couple of long, sure caresses, he slowly relaxes into your rhythm.

“There you go Karkat, you’re okay,” you murmur softly, and as you continue to stroke him he melts into your touch in a way that makes something in your belly go tight.

“Egbert, that is an obscenely pale thing to say to me right now.” His voice has gone quiet enough to match yours, and he touches you- slides his hand up your chest to drape his arm over your shoulder. He grinds once, deliberately, into your hand and you bite your lip hard to quell your impulse to just forget about everything else and kiss him, strip him naked, carry him to his bed in a heat of passion, _feel the wet heat of his nook around your dick as you…_ You bite your lip harder.

Instead, letting out a ragged breath you say, “Stand up for a second.”

He complies, stumbling a bit as his back collides with the table and you scoot your chair back a bit so he has room to find his feet. You put your hands on his waist, steadying him a bit, and then you push your hands up under his shirt to hook your fingers over the edge of his pants and pull them down slowly.

Well, there it all is. You put your hand on his belly and trace it down slowly over the protective smooth segmented plating of his bonebulge. It’s already started to retract, and you can see a sliver of soft red skin where his bulge is beginning to come out. You slide your hand down further, cupping it underneath him to stroke his nook again. His eyes close for a moment and he utters a low sigh.

You retract your hand, grab his arm instead, place your other hand at the small of his back to guide him towards you, pull on his arm to encourage him to sit back down. He does, and while your hand on his back stays there your other hand goes back to his nook. “Any words of guidance? Something you’d like me to do?”

“You could start by fucking looking at me, shitwad.”

Oh yeah, you had been really focused on what your hands were doing, but now you know where they are you track your gaze up his chest slowly until your eyes meet with an electric shock that runs through both of you. You give him a little smile and rub your hand over his nook again. You didn’t think that you could be any more flustered than you already were, but for some reason this is the point where you feel a blush come to your face. “Hi.”

He snorts at you. “Hi? Is that all you have to say right now, hi?”

You decide to stop stroking him with your whole hand, and switch to exploring his nook and the area around it with your fore and middle finger. He arches his back and bites his lip as you run your fingers up and down around the edges of his opening, and then he scowls at you as though he blames you for his involuntary reaction.

Physically this way is easier than last night was because you don’t have to reach around so much, but mentally… looking into his eyes as you touch him in the broad light of day- it’s almost too much. There’s this hungry, desperate look in his eyes that both frightens you and pulls you closer.

You feel his bulge sliding up against your wrist and you take your hand from his back so you can take hold of his bulge. With both hands at his crotch, there’s not much room for movement and you massage his bulge almost pensively while you work out the logistics. As you do this, he relaxes enough to wrap his arms around your shoulders loosely.

Carefully, you work your fingers up into Karkat’s nook, drawing a little moan from him. You push a little deeper, at the same time pulling on his bulge. He gasps. “Holy shit Egbert!”

You flash him a grin and repeat the motion, setting a slow and easy pace. Thrust and stoke, thrust and stroke, not in any kind of hurry to get it over with, just taking it slow and enjoying making him feel good. He hums in pleasure, grinding forward into you. Actually, maybe a little too far forward, um.

He just pressed the back of your hand up against your crotch. Your previous half-hard state is quite suddenly a thing of the past, and oh god, you must have made some kind of sound (you probably look mortified) because he’s getting this puzzled look on his face, and he glances down.

That’s it. You’re going to die of embarrassment.

He looks at you accusingly. “Hey!” And can you blame him? You weren’t supposed to be getting boners for your bro! You feel dirty, like- 

Karkat grinds into you again, still looking annoyed. You guess he was just mad because when you popped a boner you stopped moving your hands?

Oh.

Huh.

You restart your lazy rhythm, and the annoyance quickly melts off his face as his eyes flutter closed with a sigh. You smile, and don’t even try fighting your impulse to lay a smooch on the tip of his nose. He cracks one eye open and snorts, smirking almost sleepily. “John.”

Not stopping your rhythm, you do your best to mimic his smirk. “Karkat.”

“One of these days you are going to have to explain to me exactly how this ‘no homo’ thing works anyways, because if the rules allow this, they must be either convoluted beyond belief, or simply very lax.”

“Shush.” You’re blushing all the way to the tips of your ears, but you manage to stay focused on moving your hands. You start working them a little faster- he can’t ask uncomfortable questions if he’s busy moaning.

He makes a small grunt, bowing his head, and his hands slide to your shoulders, clutching them as though he were hanging on to you for dear life. “Unf, John? You said I could ask, right? Well not that this isn’t great but do you think you could, um… with your mouth?”

You stop, floundering. “Uh, I haven’t ever before, I probably won’t be much good at it. I can try though, if you want.”

He looks up at you than through dark lashes, pupils blown with lust, lip still wet and swollen from biting. “I want.”

Wordlessly, you wrap your arms around him and slide your hands under his ass so you can lift him up so he’s sitting on the table. Unfortunately, you forgot that the laws of physics aren’t the kind that can be bent, and your weight distribution is all off. You only get the both of you a few inches from the seat before crashing back down again. Karkat facepalms, snickering.

“Way to ruin the mood, Egderp. That’s what you get for trying to be suave.”

You scowl at him. “Just get on the table already.”

Karkat stands up and braces his hands on the table to hoist himself up, sliding himself slowly back on to the table as he continues to tease. “Pushy pushy, a troll might think you were the one in heat.” He leans back casually, putting his weight on the hands behind him, and lets his thighs fall open. Sitting in your chair, you are presented with a direct line of sight view of his nook and bulge. You exhale sharply.

You glance up, and there’s something like a challenge in the look Karkat gives you, though you aren’t sure what it is he’s challenging. You put your left hand on his knee, slide it up his thigh to rest on his hip. With your other hand you take his bulge, give it a few rubs because you are so not letting it in your mouth. Instead you lean forward and take a cautious taste of his nook.

There’s no weird romantic shit about how he tastes like cherries or sparkles and rainbows, instead he tastes tangy and musty like the days in summer you spent all day in bed touching yourself because you could, like the erros of pure, animal desire. It’s potent, almost to the point where you’re not sure you like it, but as you run your tongue over his seedflap (weird word for it, but so is labia really) you think you could learn to enjoy it.

Um. If this were to happen again. Which it probably won’t. Right.

Karkat sighs, encouraging you to try again. Compared to the tidy book diagram, his nook is a lovely mess. His seedflaps are asymmetrical, flushed more red than grey, and he’s slick with transparent red fluid. Once again it’s all starting to feel just a little too real. You lay your tongue flat and run it up from the bottom of his slit to the top, and then glance up at him.

Your uncertainty must show in your face, because he reaches forward with one hand to cup your cheek, the same way you’d done to him when you’d started this last night. His hand runs up to rest in your hair, and it grounds you. He’s got you, you can handle this. You smile at him thankfully, and then turn your attention back to his nook.

You lap repeatedly at one side, and his grip on your hair tightens as his fingers curl and he lets out a long breathy moan. You switch to the other side and his grip relaxes, only to tighten again as he cries out wordlessly. It’s probably the most errotic thing you’ve ever experienced, feeling the exact way the waves of pleasure are passing through your partner through the way his hand tightens or relaxes its hold. You pause, clenching your jaw as you take a moment to breathe. You fondle his bulge with your hand in an attempt to distract yourself from the need to fondle yours.

After you catch your breath you return to his nook with renewed determination. You explore the top of his nook, searching for a clit before remembering that you won’t find one because his bulge is in the place where it would be. You hold his bulge still for a moment, run your thumb up it from base to tip and then back down again. He swears, and you glance at his face grinning.

His cheeks are flushed, his lips parted, and he’s watching you like he’s trying to commit your face to memory. He’s intense and he’s beautiful and you feel as though those golden eyes are searing right into your heart. You find yourself frozen in place, unable to break his gaze.

He tugs on your hair, snapping you back to yourself. You stroke his bulge, squeezing it lightly and give his nook a few more long licks. He sighs, and you hesitate only a moment before slowly prodding the entrance of his nook with the tip of your tongue. You delve inside him with your tongue cautiously, fearful of making him uncomfortable.

Your worries aren’t long-lived though. As soon as he realizes what you are doing Karkat’s grip on your hair tightens and he pulls you in closer, practically forcing you to go deeper, and as you do he moans as loudly as you’ve only heard him once before.

You work your tongue inside him, trying to explore as much as stimulate. If you thought he was responsive before that was nothing compared to how he is now. Everything you do with your tongue elicits another moan, his grip on your hair hasn’t loosened, and he’s begun pressing his hips forward in rhythm to the movements of your tongue.

He comes quickly and hard, and his pelvic bone collides with your nose, making you recoil. "Ouch!" you say, but you're laughing. His bulge goes limp in your hand and starts to retract, and it drifts into your head that the reason he had such a strong reaction is how tongue-like a troll’s bulge is. You let out a sigh of your own as you look up at his face.

He looks… sad. He sits panting on the table, naked from the waist down, mouth set in a slightly trembling grimace and- oh god, oh no, are those tears? You feel as though something heavy and sharp has stomped on your heart and you quickly stand up. “Oh no! Karkat, what’s wrong? Um, whatever I did, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Nothing’s wrong, shitnugget!” Karkat interrupts, wiping his eyes furiously. “I’m in heat, all that these tears mean is that someone somewhere dropped a hat.”

Your concern stays and seems to have no intentions of leaving. “Are you sure? You can’t be crying for no reason! Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it.” You don’t know if you can make good on your promise, but you do know that you can’t stand the sight of Karkat crying, so you’ll sure as hell try.

He shakes his head, and his face returns to its usual scowl- grumpy, but not distraught. “You can’t fix hormones John. And no, you didn’t do anything wrong. Actually…” His gaze flicks downward, and you remember that yes, you still have a boner. Your eyes’ frantic search for something to hide it with is cut short when he finishes his sentiment. “I was thinking of returning the favor.”

You stare. Thoughts? What are thoughts? You can’t words. You- you take a step back. “Um, that’s really, really not necessary. I don’t want- that’s not why I-”

He slides forward to stand up and you try to give him more room to do so only to trip backwards into the chair, landing on it clumsily. “I know,” he says. “But it’s still about time I thanked you for all your help. Despite all appearances to the contrary, I’m not an entirely ungrateful fuckwad.” He slips up onto his feet, and is immediately too close for comfort. He leans in and puts both hands on your shoulders. “I know your bulge is all hot and bothered, I do have fucking eyes. Let me help you.”

You put a hand over his. “Karkat, no! I can’t! I-”

“What, so you can touch me, but if I touch you, that’s crossing a line, is that it? Jesus fuck Egbert, would it kill you to just let it happen? There’s literally no strings attached here. Besides,” His hand, the one you’re not holding, travels slowly, inexorably down your chest. His palm moves confidently over your belly with an almost ticklishly light touch. And then his hand dips lower, and you bite your lip to stifle a moan. Karkat’s eyes are victorious as his mouth curves up into a slight smile. “You do want it, don’t you?”

Karkat’s hand is on your dick. You can’t think. “I…” He rubs his hand against you, and after waiting so long to be touched your dick feels like it has strings connecting it to everything else in your body, drawing you tight as a bow and just begging for release. The state you’re in, you wouldn’t last long. It would be so easy, something short and cheap. It didn’t have to mean a thing.

You grab his wrist and pull his hand off of you, panicked. “No. This is wrong, this is all wrong! I- I can’t- I have to go.”

You push yourself backwards, the chair makes a nails-on-chalkboard sound against the floor and you stand up so you can back away towards the door skittishly. He doesn’t try to chase you or stop you. He turns around to take his plate. Oh yeah, you forgot that was still here, he must have come close to sitting on it when you had him on the table. He doesn’t look or say goodbye when you leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whee, notes on headcannons! You don't have to read this if you don't want to, it's going to involve a lot of rambling probably. if this long note daunts you, don't worry, I promise to say nothing important.
> 
> I like the idea of horns as sensory apparatus, rather than erogenous zones, mostly because that headcannon makes a lot more sense to me. They're horns! I know that aliens are alien and if you like horns as erogenous zones that's fine, so do I. I just like this headcannon better.
> 
> The other weird headcannon is one I only really allude to, but it's a headcannon I really like. This is the theory that rumblespheres are actually vestigial book lungs. 
> 
> Let me break this down. Book lungs are much like normal lungs, but they don't need to move to respirate, and are found in a variety of arachnids and book gills are found on some crustaceans. Trolls are insect-like in other ways, and since their matriarch is a seadweller it would fit for them to have traits similar to these arachnids and crustaceans.
> 
> Trolls like to be very literal-minded when naming things. I say this because this means that the word "rumblespheres" kind of supports the popular headcannon that trolls produce some kind of rumbling sound, like a purr. In using this evidence, however I also posit the possibility of a far less held belief: that trolls purr- with their boobs. Where humans have tits, they have spheres that rumble.
> 
> In order for their rumblespheres to rumble, there would have to be some passage of air, yes? Nobody actually knows exactly how cats' purring works (there are theories, but no facts), but it definitely involves sound and sound is made by vibrations in the air. So, rumblespheres would have to intake and outtake air.
> 
> Like book lungs.
> 
> As for why female trolls have larger rumblespheres than male trolls do, it may be that they started as book gills, and since the trolls who spent the most time underwater (tyrian bloods) were female, the troll race would have evolved as a whole for their females to have bigger book lung capacity. Land dwelling trolls, of course, wouldn't need their book lungs much, and they would become mostly vestigial.
> 
> Actually, if all male trolls have small/vestigial book lungs, even the sea dwellers, it might explain why Eridan avoids swimming. He finds it hard to breathe.
> 
> I didn't come up with this headcannon, but I can't find the fiction or the writer I'm borrowing it from. I'm just passing it on because it's fun and it's weird and I like it.


	4. Vodka?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> => John, have an identity crisis.

In retrospect, leaving the privacy and safety of Karkat’s home while you still had a boner was probably not a great idea. At least morning rush hour is over, so you don’t think anyone’s seen- oh god, there’s a jogger. Oh god, she’s giving you this really weird look! You duck your head and try really hard to think about old people.

You manage to kill your boner by the time you get on the bus, and thank goodness for that, but you still feel so... wrong, like you’re covered in crude oil, something dirty and disgusting and wrong. You feel like you might be sick.

When you get home, you take a shower, but it doesn’t make you feel any cleaner. You want to go to sleep and pretend it was all a dream, but a glance at the clock tells you it’s only twelve thirty- not even really afternoon yet- so you do the next best thing you can think of.

You call Roxy.

You don’t know exactly how long it takes her to get to your house, but she arrives with a couple of bottles and a sympathetic smile. She hands one to you, and you see that it’s white wine. “Here John, take it.”

“I don’t think-”

She holds up her hand to silence you. “Oh poor dear sweet innocent John, you cannot have an identity crisis without booze.” She barges in to sit down on the couch and cross her legs neatly in a movement that reminds you of Rose. “Come, sit.”

“Shouldn’t I get us glasses?”

“Just for you Johnny boy, I’m not drinking, remember?”

“Then why did you bring two whole bottles?”

“Oh this old thing?” She shows you the other bottle- it looks like vodka. Maybe gin. “This is the real drink. The wine’s a mixer so you don’t frickin’ choke.”

You go to the kitchen and get a glass. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with the wine,” you call.

For the first glass of wine, she makes smalltalk, chatting about how Jane is saying now that they should all try taking supplementary classes, get so they can enroll in highschool, or maybe get their GED’s. Roxy already has hers of course, as does Dirk, because they’re just smart like that.

When you finish off your glass though, she stops, pours you another, and waits. “So,” she says eventually, “you ready to talk about it yet?”

You look into the drink in your hand so you don’t have to look at her. “I don’t know. Ready as I’ll ever be I guess.” You take a swig of wine, and the world goes a little bit spinny. You look at her, and she’s just sitting there, waiting patiently. “I… I think I really fucked up. I think… I can’t get him out of my head, Roxy! And I just… I can’t be gay, I can’t.”

She doesn’t frown, doesn’t judge, just tops off your drink. “Why not?”

“I…” You falter. You sigh, hunching over and curling into yourself. “You know the game gay chicken?”

“Yeah.”

“Dave ‘n’ me, we did it once and… I chickened out first. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, I know, but when I pushed him away he had this look! This shattered look, and I… I think he was a little bit in love with me. We moved past it, stayed friends, but… if I couldn’t be gay for my best friend, how could I at all? Any time I think about cuddling Karkat, or kissing his face, or anything it feels like this huge betrayal.”

You pause, take a sip of wine. You expect her to tell you you’re silly, but she stays quiet. You take a deep breath, and continue.

“It’s not just Dave though, I’m not into any guys, I never have been. So why is Karkat… an _exception_?” You cringe inwardly at your own self doubt, the way that you question whether he really is an exception, even as you ask why he is one.

Roxy shrugs. “I dunno. You tell me.”

“Huh?”

She sighs. “Listen John, I’ve been guy crazy since I hit puberty, okay? I was always pretty damn sure I was straight. But when Callie ‘n’ me happened, it came to the surprise of _no one._ Guy or girl, it’s all just parts. What’s really important is the person, and liking them for who they are, not the weird gross fleshy thing they happen to live in. Although, an aesthetically pleasing body doesn’t hurt- have you seen my girlfriend’s boobs?”

You laugh, because everything is funny when you’re drunk. “Yeah, they’re um, nice? But, but, I’m still not even sure what’s going on with me and him. I- I’m not smart or introspective the way you or Rose are, I don’t get stuff as easily. I just- I’m so lost Roxy, and I don’t know what to do. I, I care about Karkat a lot. Like, so, so much. I don’t want to mess it up with him, you know?”

“I do know. Don’t be so scared though. I don’t think you can mess up too badly when it comes to this stuff. Either it doesn’t work, and you get your heart broken but heal eventually, or it does work in spite of everything, and then you have a funny story to tell to your friends when you’re doing a double date because you can.”

You talk a while longer, and you mull over what she’s said to you. You’re still uncertain of what it is you want to do when she leaves around five, saying, “I gotta dash, Callie and me’ve got a hot date! Call me if you need me though, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

 

* * *

 

EB: so you’re really not mad?

TG: dude that was years ago

TG: course im not mad

TG: do who ever makes you happy bro

EB: don’t you mean what ever makes me happy?

TG: i said what i meant

TG: go reunite with your love join in coitus where you meet tremble as you

TG: okay nope stopping this tangent here

TG: oh god now im picturing it

TG: this was not something i ever wished to see egbert what have you done to me

EB: you brought those mental images on yourself dude.

EB: but i don’t know what’s going to happen when i see karkat again.

EB: i don’t know if we’ll get together, i’m not even entirely sure that’s what i want.

EB: i just wanted to talk to you about it.

TG: because im your best bro

EB: because you’re my best bro

EB: jinx!

TG: oh come on dude what are you five

ectoBiologist (EB) has ceased pestering turntechGodhead(TG)


	5. Store-Bought Cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can we go back to the way things were?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the chapter count has gone up again, sorry. I just got carried away with friendly banter, and the smut and the friendly banter really don't belong in the same chapter together. Also, I started out naming chapters after food because I'm terrible with titles, but now it's biting me in the ass because I have to keep including new food to name each chapter after, and I suppose I could break the pattern, but then it would break the pattern.

1: 22 PM ectoBiologist (EB) has begun pestering carcinoGeneticist (CG)

 

EB: sorry i haven’t talked to you in a while

EB: i’ve been thinking about some stuff.

EB: i don’t want things to be weird between us now, okay?

EB: can we please just pretend the whole thing never happened? please?

EB: karkat?

EB: i know you’re online!

EB: i guess i can’t blame you for wanting to ignore me after everything that happened. i’ll talk to you later though, yeah?

 

ectoBiologist (EB) has ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist (CG)

 

* * *

 

Days pass by, and every time you go to pesterchum and see Karkat’s handle, you chew your lip, start a hundred sentences in your head, and then deflate and just ignore him. What would you say? How would you start? What could you tell him, aside from that you jack shit about what it is you want? So you’re taken completely by surprise when on movie night you answer the door and there’s Karkat, standing awkwardly in the doorway and holding a thing of store-bought cookies.

“Hi,” he says curtly, not quite meeting your gaze.

You smile happily anyways. “Hi Karkat! Come on in!”

He walks in and Dave and Roxy greet him warmly. He puts the cookies on the coffee table you’ve got in the middle of the living room with your other movie snacks. You follow into the living room and put in the first movie. It was Roxy’s turn to play the movie of her choice first, so you're watching The Breakfast Club.

She had freaked out when you said you’d never seen it, and though you’d started out skeptical, you love it by the end. You even catch Dave crying at one point, though he insists that they were tears of irony.

It’s nice, just sitting here comfortably with your friends with nothing better to do but talk about how brilliant it was when the actors ad libbed that dance sequence. After the never ending convoluted chaos of sBurb, the day to day drama of ordinary life is almost pleasant. Except.

Except that Karkat is sitting as far away from you as he can, on the floor by the other end of the couch, and he still refuses to look you in the eye. As you watch him, your stomach tightens painfully. Is he mad at you for running out? Or is he ashamed of what happened? You’re not certain which would be worse.

You make popcorn with soysauce and brewers yeast before the next movie, and he doesn’t even touch it. He just sits, curled up in his chair. He’ll rant at Dave and Roxy, but not at you and it feels like something in your chest that was made of glass has shattered, sharp painful edges digging right into your heart.

The movie Karkat chose starts without you hardly even noticing. What do you do? There must be something you can say to make it all okay. That’s how it works in the movies, isn’t it? “Um, is this another Bollywood?” you try.

“No.”

No? That’s all he’s saying? Not ‘Egbert, if you ever bothered to pay attention you would know that no, it isn’t, but I guess that might require too much effort, and overheat your stupid human brainsponge’ or even ‘no, I’ve had my fill of Bollywood for a while, considering I now have to associate it with a loser like you,’ anything he could say would be better than this nothing.

Roxy’s noticed too. She glances between the two of you, concern furrowing her brow. “Hey, did you guys fight or something?”

Neither of you answer, but you bump your knee against hers in what you hope she can interpret as your silent thanks for playing dumb about what’s happening- whatever it is that’s happening.

“Not really, I’m just done wasting my breath on that assmunch.” He crosses his arms and slumps down in his chair in a way that has no right to be as cute as it is. You want to smoosh his face. Or kiss it.

“Oh come on Karkat, you can’t give me the silent treatment forever.”

He looks pointedly at the movie screen. “Watch me.”

“Should I go find the Pizza Hut menu?” you ask, hoping the inside joke might soften his anger towards you.

Instead it seems to only make him draw further into himself. “I’m not hungry, thanks.” He turns to give you a sarcastic smile-grimace, incase you thought he was seriously thanking you. You think it’s the most words he’s said to you since you last saw him.

“Do you really want to go down this road? Because I will keep annoying you until you actually talk to me, you know I will!”

Karkat _humph_ s and turns back to his movie.

Feelings might be difficult, but bugging the heck out of Karkat? That you can do. “Hey Dave, switch places with me?” Dave nods, and so you shuffle around so that you’re now sitting next to Karkat. You put your arm across your knees and lean in over him.

He ignores you.

“Poke,” you say, poking him in the back of the head. “Poke. Poke. Poke.”

He turns, swats your hand away, glares daggers at you, but doesn’t say anything.

“Pooooooke,” you draw out the approach of your hand as you poke him again.

He replies with a low, rumbling growl that goes straight to the fight or flight part of your brainstem, not passing Go, and not collecting two hundred dollars.

“Whoa, Karkat, calm your rumblespheres! I’m just goofing around! Jeez Louise, sorry!” You hold up your palms in the universal sign for surrender.

“Feh.” He turns back to watch the movie.

It’s time for stage two: strategized harassment. Unlike general constant harassment, stage two requires patience. You watch the movie, actually giving the rom-com your attention for once. You smile in anticipation, as the airport chase scene begins to gear up. You wait for precisely the right moment, just as the guy on screen is about to confess his feelings.

“I don’t want to ever live without you,” the actor says. “Amber, I-”

“Poke.”

“John Egbert, I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HANDS AND FEED THEM TO EMUS. I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT THEY ARE PROBABLY NOT CARNIVOROUS BIRDS, I WILL TAKE YOUR BLOODY TORN OFF HANDS AND SHOVE THEM DOWN THEIR THROATS! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?”

“Maybe,” you say, gloating grin plastered across your face.

“YOU WANT TO TALK, OH WE’LL TALK ALRIGHT! I WILL BERATE YOU SO HARD THAT YOUR EARDRUMS AND MY VOCAL CHORDS WILL SIMULTANEOUSLY COMBUST! HOWEVER, MY VERBAL SLAUGHTER OF YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS WILL WAIT UNTIL WE ARE DONE WATCHING THIS PIECE OF CINEMATIC GENIUS, IF THAT’S OKAY WITH EVERYONE.”

“Yeah, now that you say something I guess you’re right. Some of the stuff I wanna talk to you about, we should probably talk about alone.” You shrug, and recline back in the couch, mission complete. “You’re just lucky you cracked when you did, I was going to have to change my pick to Con Air next.”

“If you’d done that, I would have helped Karkat sneak into the zoo to find the emus, John,” Dave says gravely.

“Dude, how can you even say the word ‘emus’ with a straight face?” you ask, grinning at him.

“My face is an immovable emotionless monolith, you know this.”

“Psh, that’s what you think maybe.”

“Can you taintlicks please stop talking over the movie?” Karkat snaps. “Talk over John’s movie, you know it’s going to be shit.”

You stretch your arms out to grasp his shoulders, bending yourself practically in half in the process. “Karkaaaat! You’re being so meeeaaan! Don’t you like me anymore?”

He pushes one of your hands off and shrugs away from the other. “I already agreed to talk to you, for some reason I entertained the delusion that that meant you would stop whining like an obnoxious wriggler whose lusus hasn’t fed it yet today.”

“Karkat, we always talk over all of the movies, that’s the whole point of movie night,” Dave drawls lazily.

So things relax after that, with everyone doing their regular banter, but when you get up to put in your choice of National Treasure and your leg accidentally brushes against Katkat’s side he slides himself away from the touch so quickly his reaction is almost violent. When you sit, you tuck your legs in carefully against the edge of the couch so it doesn’t happen again. You studiously ignore the part of you that despairingly wails how he must really hate you now. Before, at least, he tolerated your touch. You feel like the worst kind of person, you must be for him to hate you this way.

You can’t even relax and enjoy Nicolas Cage, not with Karkat so near and yet so far. The line about stealing the Declaration of Independance goes by, and you forget to high five Roxy about it. You may as well not even be there.

Dave notices your funk. “Dude, you haven’t said anything about how awesome Nic Cage is once, and this is one of the few movies where he’s actually kind of tolerable. What’s up?”

“Huh? Nothing.”

“Oh really? Nothing? I guess you won’t mind if I just steal the remote and skip to the end then, since we have all seen this movie before.”

“What? No dude! You can’t skip over my movie! Not cool!”

“Then fucking watch it for christ’s sakes.”

“Maybe I was just contemplating Nicolas Cage’s genius in silence, ever think of that Dave?”

“You never contemplate in silence Egbert, you don’t have the brain cells for it.”

“Hey! There is a very thin line between friendly teasing and being just mean, you know!”

“No, he’s right, you always say exactly what you’re thinking, like your defective sponge isn’t big enough to retain your ideas so they start leaking out your mouth,” Karkat turns to you to say, but there’s no edge to his words. Instead he speaks casually, softly even, like he’s just stating a fact, not trying to insult you. You peer at his face, puzzled.

Roxy elbows you in the ribs. “Yeah, but that’s why we love ya.”

You chuckle and blush a little, and you think you catch a hint of a smile on Karkat’s face before he turns back to watch the movie. I can fib if I need to when I’m pranking someone though,” you point out.

“Yeah, you’re really bad at it though- the lying, not the pranking. You always smile too much when you’re anticipating a prank, it’s pretty easy to spot the lies,” Dave says. “I only pretend to fall for them because I know how important your pranks are to you and I want to bolster your self esteem like the good chum that I am.”

“Yeah right, bull shit!”

The mood fluctuates a few more times, tensing up and then relaxing into chatter about nothing again. Dave makes what he assures everyone is a suitably ironic choice for his movie, Brokeback Mountain, which you whine and complain about at first (“Aw, Dave, the gay cowboy movie, really?”) but as it goes on, you find out that it’s actually a decent movie, though you’re nowhere near as invested in it as Karkat is (“God damn it Amus, punching people is NOT how we deal with our emotional issues!”).

And then you get to the ending (you’ve heard enough complaining from Rose on the subject to know that gay films never end happily), and Karkat looks really shaken. “Does that really happen? Do people really get murdered for being… homosexual?”

“Less and less, but yeah, it still happens. Did happen a lot more.” Dave is unreadable as always, but something about the set of his mouth is a bit grimmer than usual. “Depends on where you live, how educated the people around you are. Washington’s a mostly liberal state, so this is one of the better places to live. My old home in Texas on the other hand- I think a few of the bastards who live there might be on Orson Scott Card’s payroll.”

Karkat doesn’t ask who Orson Scott Card is or why being on his payroll means you’re homophobic, he just kind of sits there quietly. Eventually he murmurs, “Jesus dickbiscuit, just when you think people couldn’t be bigger douchebags than they already were, another layer of awful is revealed.”

“Yeah. It works the other way too, though. Some people may keep getting worse, but others only keep getting better,” you say hopefully.

He looks at you with a sad smile. “You would say that.”

“It’s true! Most people mean well, even the ones who do bad stuff. And the more knowledge spreads, the more likely they are to learn from their mistakes and become better. You just gotta have some faith in people sometimes, you know?”

Dave snorts. “What is this, a children’s cartoon? I’m going to hit the road before you break out into song and dance or some shit.” He collects his DVD. “Roxy, you coming?”

“Nah, I think I wanna hang out here a little longer.”

“Roxy, don’t you remember you asked me to give you a ride home?”

“No I- oh RIGHT. Yeah, let’s bounce.”

You cross your arms at them. “...You know you guys, we did establish that Karkat was gonna stay and talk with me after you left. You don’t need to make any bogus excuses to leave, you can just go. And you guys call me a bad liar!”

Dave, of course, grabs Roxy with an exaggerated expression of panic. “Quickly Roxy, they’re onto us! Run while you still can!”

Roxy giggles as she allows herself to be dragged towards your door. “Hasta la vista, babes!”

And then you and Karkat are alone together.


	6. Crepes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John continues to act like a five-year-old, but finally figures some stuff out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesss! I apologise profoundly for the delay, I've had college-shaped things to do, and also a fucking construction zone right outside my apartment that made writing really hard. I may update this later, maybe try to code the pesterlogs to be colored, but for the most part this is the end. Please leave questions, comments, and critiques!  
> You may also, one day, find editorials or little pieces from Karkat's perspective in the comment section because I am a waffle who over-analyzes everything.
> 
> *Edit*: Hiss! For some reason the formatting on this chapter is different, and I can't fix it! Grr.

You and Karkat are alone together.  
“I’m sorry,” you both say at once.  
“Jinx!”  
“What the bulge fondling fuck do you have to be sorry for? I mean, I still take your very existence as a personal affront, but aside from that I am clearly the one at fault here. Also, jinx? What are you, two?”  
“Haha, that’s what Dave said, but now you both owe me sodas, so who’s the real chump here?” He glares at you, and you chuckle again, but a bit more awkwardly. “Why are you still on the floor? Come sit on the couch! It’s weird talking to you with this height difference. I mean, more of a difference than usual.”  
Karkat rolls his eyes and gets to his feet so that he stands over you. “Shut up.”  
“Haha, ‘cause you’re short.”  
He sits down on the far end of the couch and tucks his legs into his chest, like he’s afraid you might punch him in the stomach. “How can you honestly pretend that nothing happened? I did everything wrong, and you’re acting like it’s all just magically okay because you said so.”  
“Huh? What wrong did you do? Last time I checked, I was the stupid human who can’t make up his own mind about what he wants.”  
Karkat scoffs. “At least you’re not the rat bastard troll who fucking molested his friend just because he was horny.”  
“Wait, what? Is that what you’ve been beating yourself up about all this time? Because I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to.”  
“Except for that one time you expressly told me no, and I grabbed your junk anyways!” Karkat hisses.  
“Oh. Yeah, I guess that did happen, huh? But-” but what? What could you really say to that? “But it doesn’t matter. I’m fine now, okay? At the time, I think more than anything I was just weirded out by how much I wanted-” again you pause for the right word. Sex? More? “You.”  
He narrows his eyes. “You wanted me?”  
“Um, well yeah! I guess I did. We were doing sexy stuff, and more specifically you were offering sexy stuff to me, of course I wanted to. I just- I’m not used to feeling that, with another guy especially. Like, at all.”  
“So it was an attraction of circumstance. You wanted me because we were already in that situation, you with a boner and me with my hand on that boner.”  
And suddenly, almost audibly, everything clicks into place. You feel as if you’ve finally figured out a complex mathematical formula, as everything slowly becomes clear. “No, I don’t think so. Because being together right now with you, and even before all that happened, I’ve been thinking seriously about kissing your face. I don’t think that’s an attraction of circumstance, I think I just like you. Like like you.”  
Karkat isn’t saying anything. Um, what do you do? Also, _like like?_ Ugh. You keep babbling.  
“Like, I had myself convinced for so long it was just platonic affection, but here we are and I don’t want for things between us to go back to the way that they were, I want them to be better. I don’t know if that’s possible, if it’ll work, but I wanna try. So, um, maybe I could take you out to dinner some time?”  
Karkat is curled up so tightly, mouth pressed against his knees, you can’t read anything about how he's feeling. “What happened to you being ‘not a homosexual?’”  
“Psh, what does that even mean?”  
You think you might hear a slight smile in his voice as he says, “Well some idiot told me it’s when a boy likes another boy, or some thinkpan-rotted shit like that. So, what, you’re suddenly attracted to guys now?”  
You smile and shrug, a little embarrassed. “Not guys, just you.”  
Karkat unfurls his legs, and then he’s kissing you, and yes. _Yes,_ this is how it was supposed to be from the beginning. The hunger of his heat gone, he kisses sweetly, gently, in a way that lingers on your lips even after he’s pulled away. He smirks at you. “You planned saying that in advance, didn’t you?”  
“Maybe a little. I wanted to seem smooth.”  
“Well I guess we’re both just lucky you didn’t hurt yourself trying then, Zoosmell Pooplord.”  
“Oh man, you really pick now to bring back that old joke? I’d almost forgotten about it!” Even though you’re not kissing anymore, he’s looking at you with the happiest expression you think you’ve seen on him, and his side is pressing into yours, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder and you can’t believe your mouth is functioning so well because your heart is thudding heavily in your chest like you’ve just run a mile.  
“That’s why it’s the perfect time to bring it back! Couldn’t let you forget about being a Pooplord. Never forget your heritage John, it makes you who you are.”  
You crack up and throw your head back laughing. “Okay, I won’t,” you say, kissing his cheek because you can. “So is that a yes to dinner? I’m thinking The Waterstreet Cafe, Saturday?”  
“Waterstreet? Isn’t that place intolerably fancy?”  
“Well yeah, I wasn’t going to ask you on a date to Olive Garden or something.”  
“As much as I appreciate the romantic gesture, you’ve given me enough food. If we’re going on a dinner date, bulgelick, I am paying and that is final!”  
“Karkat, I honestly want to take you out to dinner, and since I asked, I pay. That’s how it works.”  
“Too bad, it’s my turn.”  
“I know, we can flip a coin! Heads, you pay, tails I’ll pay.”  
“I- that’s a stupid-ass way of deciding, but fine.”  
So you dig a penny out of your pocket and flip it. It immediately gets lost between the couch cushions. “Whoops.” You find it again, and flip it over the coffee table. “Tails.”  
“You didn’t cheat with the Breeze, did you?”  
“Karkat! I would never!”  
“Since when can you afford The Waterstreet Cafe? You don’t have to bleed your pockets dry for me.”  
“You would totally be worth every penny, but don’t worry- I’ll ask my dad for some cash.”  
“Whatever, fine. Shut up, you ridiculous sap.” He puts his hand on your shoulder and kisses you again, briefly. “Since we’ve worked that out, I should head home. It’s late.”  
“Yeah, I guess it must be.” Honestly, you hadn’t noticed the time.  
Karkat gets up. “Good night.”  
“Hey wait!”  
He stops and gives you a challenging look. “What?”  
“Um… well I just said how I feel. But I still have no idea what your feelings are.” ...God that sounded girly. You wince internally.  
“Are you fucking kidding me? I thought it was pretty obvious I like you too, numbnuts.”  
You smile. “Oh. Okay then.”

* * *

Since neither of you have a car, you’d agreed that Karkat should come to your house, and then from there you could take the bus together downtown. You would have asked to borrow your dad’s car, but he already gave you a hundred bucks to spend on dinner so taking the car too would be too much. You told him it wouldn’t cost that much, but he just told you to enjoy yourself, and that he was proud of you.  
You’re so excited-nervous for your date! You check your reflection in the mirror for the umpteenth time, and smooth out your jacket. Your old ghostbusters suit might be a bit small, and a bit silly, but this is a nice restaurant, and it’s a good suit damn it! You hear a knock at the door, and sprint to it at supersonic speed.  
“Hi Karkat! You look nice! Um, I think I forgot something upstairs, I’ll run up and get it. Come on in though, won’t take two seconds.” He really does look nice, charcoal grey suit a few shades darker than his skin, and for once his hair looks like he might have attempted to comb it at one point, at least until he lost the comb and his wild hair consumed it.  
You’re one to talk, of course, your hair is nearly as untamable as his. Also, you’re babbling like a hyper nervous wreck. You dash upstairs to collect your wallet and the mini bouquet of flowers you bought earlier today. You look yourself over in the mirror again and slap yourself in the face. “Stop it John, there’s no reason to be nervous, it’s Karkat!” you tell yourself.  
You come down stairs to find an empty hallway. Searching around, you quickly locate Karkat sitting on your couch in the living room. “Hey! Ready to go?”  
“Actually, I was sort of thinking we could eat in. You didn’t get, like, reservations or anything did you?”  
“No, I didn’t think we’d need them. But why?”  
He gives a wry chuckle. “Can you really see me with my foul mouth fitting in at The Waterstreet fucking Cafe? Here we can relax a little more, have some actual fun.”  
“Man, for a hopeless romantic, you’re not letting me be very romantic,” you complain. “Oh yeah, I got these for you.” You give him the bouquet with a flourish.  
He takes the handful of arranged flowers, and is he blushing? It’s hard to tell, because of his grey skin, but you think you see a slight reddening in his cheeks. Yes! “Thanks. You’ll have to remind me to take them home with me. We should put them in some water right now though.”  
“Right.” So you go find a vase, and while you’re there you take stock of your kitchen. “How do you feel about savory crepes for dinner?” you call as you select a vase from the top shelf of one of your cupboards.  
“Sweet ones for dessert?”  
“Well duh!” You fill the vase with water.  
“Sounds perfect. How can I help?” His voice is a lot closer, and you turn to see him in the foyer between kitchen and living room.  
You put the bouquet into your vase and hand it to him. “You could put this on the table for a start.”  
While he does that, you get out the ingredients for the crepes. He comes back, and you ask him to cut some vegetables for you. It’s nice, cooking together. You collide once or twice, and he berates you for being a clumsy halfwit, but you think he’s having fun too. Dinner is eaten on the couch (you don’t actually have a dining room), and it feels cozy and natural. You decide that friends definitely make the best dates.  
After you’ve cleared away the dishes, you sit back down together and lapse into silence for some reason. “So, what do you want to do now?” you finally inquire. “I have some games, or…”  
“Want to make out?” His cheeks turn a ruddy greyish-scarlet, but he doesn’t look away.  
You grin. “Okay.” You lean in and brush your lips against his, once softly and then again more fully. He sighs into your kiss, and you feel his hands skate blindly over your chest until one finds your shoulder, and the other finds your side. He grasps at you as if you might vanish if he let go.  
You’re not sure what to do with your hands, so you decide to kind of mirror him, circling one hand around the small of his back and setting the other against the back of his neck as you kiss him again and you feel him parting his lips and then his tongue is exploring your mouth, tentatively at first, then with increasing assurance.  
Your tongue slides against his, and it sends warm shivers all through your body. He flicks his tongue almost ticklishly over the roof of your mouth and for some reason you suck on it lightly.  
He pulls away and gasps out a big breath of air. “Holy shit.”  
“Good?” you ask.  
“See for yourself.” He kisses you again, mouth open and inviting, so you slide your tongue into his mouth, and get lost in how well you fit together, the way he so carefully keeps you safe from his fangs (they don’t feel that sharp really, you don’t know why you were ever worried), and then he moves his tongue, creates suction between your lips and his and you feel dizzy at the sensation.  
You break the kiss, eyes closed, leaning your forehead against his. “Yeah,” you murmur breathlessly, “good.” And then you chuckle a little, because you always thought the phrase “face-sucking” was a little more figurative than this. Karkat tilts his head quizzically at you, and you explain the joke, earning you a deathly glare.  
“Seriously, we’re in the middle of making out, and that’s what pops into your head?”  
“Well it’s mixed together with other thoughts like ‘wow, this is wow, why did I not do this sooner?’ but yeah, you have reduced me to an incoherent fountain of nonsense, I hope you’re happy.”  
A huge thrumming sound rattles against your ribcage, and at first you think a motorcycle gang must be driving by the house, but you realize that it’s coming from Karkat’s chest. “John, isn’t that what you’ve always been?”  
“It’s true, it just took hot Karkat kisses to reveal the real me. Only you can see my true self, Karkat, it’s so romantically tragic!” You retract your hand from his hair to pull it into your chest for dramatic effect.  
He stops purring all at once and gives you an indignant look that reminds you so much of a cat. “John, this is supposed to be serious makeouts time, not goofball idiots who don’t know when to stop talking time.”  
“You’re right. Obviously we can only have the most serious of makeouts. We must set our lips in stern grimaces and press them together. No fun is to be had here, only serious makeouts,” you say, making your voice deeper to mimic, you don’t know, someone very serious. You pinch your lips together tightly and lean toward Karkat like you’re going to kiss him, though you don’t quite.  
“You’re ridiculous, and I am ashamed to be associated with you,” he says, but you can see his mouth curving into an amused smile. Also, he’s purring again. Barely audibly, you wouldn’t know if you weren’t so close, but you are and you feel it resonating in your bones.  
You pet his hair softly, and his purr deepens. “So is this just makeouts, or… how far do you want to take this?”  
He blinks. “Honestly I assumed that kisses were as far as I could take it. Why, what were you thinking?”  
You hesitate, and smile ruefully. “I’m a horny teenaged boy, what do you think I was thinking?”  
“I- but- well I don’t know about you, but I was thinking that you only just got over the whole ‘not a homosexual’ thing and needed a certain adjustment period before- isn’t there some kind of silly human rule about how far you’re supposed to go on a first date anyways?”  
“Well we already kind of broke that rule. Twice. Besides, I think it only applies where people don’t already know each other. I think we’re good, as long as you promise to respect me in the morning. As for acclimation, yeah, I’m no where near ready for being like penetrated or anything, but other kinds of sexy funtimes? Let’s do it. Let’s make this shit happen.” You had to make the joke, otherwise the mortification from having to do the ‘this is where I draw the line’ talk would totally kill the mood. Rrgh, why does the word ‘penetration’ have to be so unsexy?  
Karkat, predictably, facepalms. “John, of all the inappropriate times to make that reference, this takes the crown. May all lesser references bow before its mighty weight.”  
“You’re cute when you’re exasperated.”  
“Accounts for why you like me then, you are a constant source of exasperation. Also, fuck you, you patronizing asswipe.”  
“I thought we just established that that’s exactly the thing that won’t be happening tonight.”  
“Smartass.”  
“If you insist.” You reach around and pinch his butt. He opens his mouth, no doubt to tell you off again, but you duck down and kiss the side of his jaw. He closes his mouth, and while he’s still confused you kiss him on the lips.  
His lips are tight with annoyance, so you smooch him again, a series of soft little kisses until he relaxes and starts kissing back. “Cheater,” he mutters after a particularly long one, during which your hand has come to rest on his thigh, .  
“Sorry. Um, I can make it up to you if you like.” You slide your hand up his thigh slowly. You shift closer, kiss his cheek, his neck, your fingers run up over the bulge at the juncture between his legs. His bulge is out already, and you feel a swell of pride at that as you give it a little squeeze.  
“John.”  
He fucking sighs your name, and his voice, his tone, it’s all you’ve ever dreamed of. The way he says it feels like a secret _I want you, I need you, **you,** John you, nobody else, need/want/love you so much, yes._  
Then his hand is grasping yours so it stills. “John. Stop.”  
Oh. You immediately snatch your hands away, ignore the ache in your palms as you hold them up flat between you like they might protect you from the curl of disappointment mixed with contrition in your chest. “Sorry.”  
“You should be. Didn’t I say it was my turn, shitstain? Food’s one thing, but I am not flipping a damned fucking coin on this shit.” He runs his hand up your arm and puts the other on your thigh, leaning in with a wicked looking smile. “You took the lead the last two times because I was fucking desperate, now I want to set the pace for a change.”  
“You scared me, I thought I’d screwed up again,” you chuckle breathlessly.  
He nuzzles your cheek and murmurs, “Clearly choosing to date me of all people is a royal fuck up on your part, and I’m just taking advantage of you until you realize that fact.” He scoffs. “Jegus John, can you just relax for two fucking seconds?” His breath tickles warmly against your ear.  
“‘Kay.” You turn your head to find his lips with yours. As if by unspoken consensus, you lay back on the couch and he spreads himself out over you. Your legs come up to tangle with his and he shifts his weight onto one elbow so he can give you some breathing room. His hand, perhaps coincidentally, slides up your thigh to rest just beside your crotch. Your dick throbs, suddenly hard and aching to be touched, and you groan as that discomfort mingles with the pleasure of his lips on yours.  
He gives a little chuckle, brushes his nose against yours, and moves his hand slowly over your crotch. You press your lips together tightly and whimper at the simple contact. You slip your hands up under his shirt to caress his sensitive grubscars. He sighs and squeezes you in response.  
You gasp, his eyes hold yours for a moment, and then he's leaning in to kiss and nibble at the nape of your neck. The sharp tips of his fangs thrill your senses as they brush lightly over soft, vulnerable skin. You hum your pleasure and he bites down a little harder.  
"Ouch, careful with those."  
He says nothing, but stops nibbling, going for an open-mouthed kiss instead. He takes one spot where neck and shoulder meet into his mouth and sucks lightly, flicks his warm tongue over your skin, making you moan quietly. He sucks a little harder, stays there until you start to feel a bruise forming, a little welt to mark where he's been.  
At the same time, his hand is busy rubbing you through your trousers with lazy strokes, and it drives you crazy like nothing you could ever do by yourself. He kisses the mark he's just left on you, and then sits up so he can take off his shirt.  
Grey skin stretches smoothly over compact muscle, there's little red scars on his arms, and one big one across his shoulder. You trace one of the little ones with your thumb. "Where'd you get that?"  
"Some stupid imp caught me off guard. What, don't you have any scars?"  
"Did, but a brand new body with magical healing abilities is all kind of part of the package when you go godtier. What about this one?" You point to one on his other arm.  
"I tried to kill my shitwipe neighbor's lusus, it tried to kill me right back. Why the sudden curiosity?"  
You shrug. "I want to know your stories, that's all. What about that big one? I bet there's a really cool story behind that one."  
Karkat blushes visibly. "Not really. I uh, cut myself practicing with my sickles. It's kind of embarrassing."  
You chuckle. "Man, you think that's embarrassing, you should have seen me the first time I tried handling the Sassacrusher. I nearly gave myself a concussion with that thing!"  
"I did see you, remember? It was pathetic."  
"Your face is pathetic."  
"Says the hamster-toothed buffoon who was just making out with said face." He settles down over your chest, bringing his (really not pathetic at all) face close enough to yours that you can see every detail.  
"You're right, you caught me. I am the most pathetic face, it is me." You lean up to close the gap between your lips and his before he can say anything else. He kisses you back, but sits up again, and you're a bit confused until he starts undoing the buttons on your shirt. You help, going up from the bottom while he works from the top. Once your shirt is open, you shrug it off easily while Karkat brushes over your chest with just the tips of his fingers, touch experimental and cautious.  
You lie back, letting him explore, though his light touches tease you awfully. You move to grab your dick through your trousers to relieve some of your lustful frustration, but he catches hold of your hand. "Wait."  
So you touch him instead, explore the planes and swells of his chest as he does the same to you. He presses down on your nipple like it's a button, and you giggle. "Weirdo."  
"Weirder-o," he mutters thoughtlessly.  
“That’s not a word,” you recite teasingly. “Also, as funny as that was, it would feel a lot better if you touched them like this.” You take his hand and guide it so it lays flat and caresses your breast with its palm. The soft friction against your nipple feels nice. Though you certainly spend enough time thinking about girls’ nipples, you sometimes forget that they’re an erogenous zone for guys too.  
He gets the idea, and traces a circle around your nipple with his thumb. You let go of his hand, run your fingers over his far smoother chest, around to his side where you find his grub scars. “I guess you could say they’re a lot like these, I think,” you explain, your fingers passing over the stripe with ticklishly light touch.  
“Yes, I know what they are, I just didn’t know what they would feel like.”  
“Oh? Who told you?”  
He goes slightly pink. “A source who wishes to remain anonymous may have sent me some educational videos.”  
“Dave gave you porn?”  
“Shut up.”  
“Why did Dave give you porn?”  
“Cease your brazen assumptions at once! No one said it was Dave, but if it were, I’d say I think it was his way of telling me he was supportive or happy for me or some shit? I would also explain that I may have asked him about you, him being your best not-a-moirail-honestly friend and thusly the resident expert on all things John Egbert.”  
“Aw, really?” The thought that Karkat was asking about you, well, it warms the cockles of your heart.  
“John, I seem to recall that not too long ago you seemed to want me to touch your bulge. Is that still a thing that’s happening, or are we just going to banter frivolously for the rest of the night?”  
You manfully resist making another reference, because if you did your nether regions might commit mutiny. Instead, you kiss his shoulder. “Okay, fair, no more banter. Not even if I think of something really funny.”  
His hands mold themselves over your chest, and he kisses you like he might just fall into you if he could. One hand travels lower, tracing over the sensitive skin of your stomach, your loins tighten with little surges of pleasure as he dips his hand lower below the waistband of your pants and his fingers tangle with the patch of hair just above your dick.  
“Huh. Your weird mammal fur is actually kind of nice, soft,” he remarks, rubbing his hand down lower, so that he has his whole hand down your pants and the tips of his fingers are brushing tantalizingly over your base as he fucking pets your pubic hair- what is your life? It might feel nice if you weren’t so uncomfortably aroused, but right now it feels like the most excruciating tease.  
“Karkat…” you can’t hardly think, but you need… you need… yeah, you know what? You don’t have to add any other words, you just need. “Karkat, please.”  
He freezes. “What?”  
“Karkat please, I want- I need- I can’t…” You look at him, hoping your eyes can convey what your tongue-tied mouth can’t.  
He unfastens your pants and yanks them down to your mid thighs with such fervor that your boxers are taken along for the ride and you worry distantly about them ripping or being torn them by his claws. But that thought is whisked away like so many dandelion seeds when his hand makes skin to skin contact with your dick. It’s only the tips of his fingers, exploring your length with little intent but curiosity, and yet it completely undoes you.  
“Shit, I’m gonna-”  
Suddenly he has his hand in an iron grip around your dick, so even as you ride out an orgasmic wave of pleasure, you can’t ejaculate and the pressure that builds is almost painful with your need for release. You whimper, but he catches your eyes with an expression something like desperation. “Not yet.”  
Well when he looks at you like that, you can hardly hold a grudge, much as every muscle in your body is tense when they would love nothing more than to melt into jello. Also, he’s standing up and taking his pants off too, so there’s that.  
When he settles back down on the couch, he does so by straddling your lap. It’s fucking amazing the way his hips fit against yours, like you were made for each other. And there’s nothing holding you back anymore, so you prop yourself up on your elbows and share your sentiment with him.  
“Keep talking like that and I am going to ruin your pants. God, I am such a fucking mess.”  
“Me too.”  
“Damn straight, get up here you fucking mess.”  
So you sit up, lock lips, and don’t break away even as you’re shifting your positions so you have the couch at your back for support. You twine one hand in his hair, and as he grinds into you slowly you latch onto his horn because fuck do you need something to hold onto. His eyes flutter closed, and he holds you close by your arms, tilts his head back and you kiss his exposed neck softly.  
You wrap your arm around him and grip his shoulder because you don’t want to squeeze his grubscars too hard by mistake. He opens his eyes, and nuzzles the side of your face like you’re the only thing in the world besides him. “You don’t even know pity,” he says harshly against your ear. “How the fuck do you manage to push all my buttons?”  
“Karkat…” Your voice is muffled because your lips can’t bare to leave his skin and how the hell is he still coherent? It’s not fair! You release his shoulder and slide your hand down over his back, the tips of your fingers brush over the tip of one grubscar on your way and you smooth your hand out over the curve of his ass. He grinds into you, and you feel dizzy and disoriented because something soft and firm and wet is wrapping itself around your dick, and you know it’s not his tongue.  
Karkat’s weird alien dick is sliding up and around yours, and it is the hottest. Fucking. Thing. It’s both too much and not enough all at once, the squeezing pressure is there but none of the rhythm, and fuck, the way it curls around you is like nothing else you could ever imagine, but you need to cum and you can’t like this. You need to be rubbed fully, damn it, not teased to within an inch of your life.  
You rut up against him, hips jerking as if in a futile attempt to get up while he’s still sitting on your lap. A pang of pleasure rides through your body so sharp you have to roll back your head, and his bulge’s movements are more purposeful now. There’s a definite up and down pattern to the way its coils move over your dick, but it’s too fucking slow. It’s leisurely, like he’s got all the time in the world, like he wants to make this last, and yeah, okay, as the urgency of it all ebbs and fades, this is nice.  
There’s this gradual increase in speed, but it’s still lazy like he could do this all day, and it’s making something low in your groin pool up all warm and sweet, and it’s the most romantic thing in the world. It’s all raw, and real, and here, and him, and everything is so perfect you just want to drink it in.  
You cum, shaky and relieved, and he moans with you before taking his bulge in his hand and finishing himself off with a few quick jerks, and you’re kind of glad because he could have asked you for anything just then, and you don’t think you could have refused. You’d have let him do anything he wanted to, and there are still things you’re not quite ready for. But he grinds a last couple times against your hips (his hips really do fit so perfectly against yours) and then he’s collapsed against your chest, and your whole cardiovascular chamber feels like it’s full of sunlight.  
There’s semen on the couch, and you don’t even care.  
Eventually Karkat stirs. “I have to… bucket.”  
He seems reluctant to get up, and you agree. “No Karkat, don’t leave just yet.”  
“Got to. Be right back. Two minutes.” He pushes off against the back of the couch and uses that inertia to catapult himself into a (somewhat unsteady) standing position.  
“Wait.” You catch his hand. “Can I see?”  
He stares at you. “You want to watch?”  
“I could help too, if you want.”  
He blushes brightly, his already flushed face darkening all the way to the tips of his ears. “You. I. You’re too much John Egbert, sometimes you’re really too much. ...No helping, but I guess you can watch. It’s nothing that exciting though, really.”  
“More exciting than that stupid book you gave me, if experience is anything to go on.”  
He smirks, and you chuckle nervously. Then he decaptchalogs a shiny pail and puts it on the floor. He starts to squat down over it, but then he stops. He turns around and sits in your lap, and you instinctively wrap your arms around his chest. He slides himself down so that his butt hands just over the edge of the seat and moves the bucket into place under him with his feet.  
He reaches down into his nook, and you can’t see exactly what he’s doing to it, but you feel the way his hand moves in the little micro-expressions of his arm, the little quivers in it you only notice because your arm is pressed against it.  
He moans and moans, and all of the sudden there’s a gush of reddish genetic material that sprays out from between his legs. He convulses, and the stream surges stronger, and then gradually slows, only to gush again as he bucks his hips again. One more surge, and he’s done, stream trickling out to a drip.  
You kiss his temple, and hand him a napkin, because you don’t have a towel. He cleans himself off, and then turns around and wipes at some of the cum on your thigh.  
“Karkat? What does this make us?”  
“Sticky.” He folds the napkin so he won’t have to handle the wet part.  
“Ha ha, very funny, you know what I mean!”  
He shrugs, but something in the way he isn’t meeting your eyes tells you he doesn’t mean it. “What do you want us to be?”  
“I… I want us to be friends. First and foremost and always- wait, no, hear me out!”  
As soon as you’d said ‘friends,’ he’d looked up at you with this hard, painful look, like a battle face, like “I knew this was coming and I braced for it, but it still hurts.”  
“I want us to be friends, but also I want more! I’m just saying that if the more goes wrong, I want the friends part to still be there.”  
You see him bite the inside of his cheek. He’s listening now, tense and waiting.  
“And, maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want to do friends with benefits thing we were doing before. I’m sorry, but I want more than an annual booty call, I want- I want to take you to Waterstreet, and fuck all the pompous people who pretend they never swear, or to the park, or wherever, and I want to kiss you and hold your hand all the time just because I can. I don’t care if you call that mate-sprite-ness or whatever, as long as you’re okay with me calling you my boyfriend. ...Do you think that can work?”  
You finish your speech, and Karkat stares in shock. You’re a little surprised yourself; you hardly knew half of that stuff were things that were true until you said them! For the longest time he just sits there, naked on your lap, searching your eyes like they hold the secrets to the universe. Then he speaks.  
“Honestly… I have no idea. I’d like to give it a try though.”  
You beam. “Really?”  
He kisses you, and you immediately kiss him back, and there’s no tongue this time because there doesn’t always have to be, and suddenly he’s biting your lip. You pull away.  
“Ow!”  
“That’s for all that time I spent pining after your stupid ass.”


End file.
